56 ornithologist's text-book. 



Systema Avium. Auctor Dr. Joannes Wagler. 

 Pars prima. Sm. 8vo. pp. 412. Stuttgard. 1827. 



" Although perfectly unpretending in outward 

 appearance, this little volume may rank in effect 

 among the most important and desirable that have 

 recently been published. With compilations we 

 have indeed been overwhelmed, but there has 

 scarcely occurred a single work, embracing the 

 whole of any extensive department of Zoology, to 

 which the epithet original could be justly applied. 

 Manuals especially appeared to have become the 

 exclusive property of the mere heaper together, 

 without discrimination and without examination, 

 of the labours of other men. In the present in- 

 stance the author has taken a much higher ground, 

 and the plan which he has pursued reflects credit 

 on his judgment and on his industry. He has 

 endeavoured to see for himself the specimens which 

 others had described, and to describe also those 

 which others had not possessed. Into the body of his 

 work he has rarely introduced a species which he 

 had not personally observed, and he has very pro- 

 perly placed it within the power of every one to 

 verify his accuracy, by referring throughout, ex- 

 cept in the case of the more common birds, to the 

 collections in which they are respectively pre- 

 served. From these sources he has brought toge- 

 ther a very considerable number of species, which 

 he has carefully described and attentively collated 

 with the chief ornithological works. The doubtful 

 species, and those of uncertain location, are ap- 

 pended at the end of each genus, and the distinc- 

 tion is thus strikingly made between those parts 

 of his System for which Dr. Wagler is himself 

 responsible, and those which rest only on the au- 

 thority of others. 



