COOPER'S HAWKE. 263 
It is objected to the numerous subdivisions that have been 
proposed in our day, that they pass into and blend insensibly 
with each other. ‘This is no doubt true ; but is it not the same 
with regard to natural groups of every denomination ? It is 
this fact which has induced us to consider them as subgenera, 
and not as distinct genera. We are told, however, by the ad- 
vocates for numerous genera, that, in giving a name, we adopt 
a genus; but we do not see that this necessarily follows. 
There are, we confess, other grounds on which we might be 
attacked with more advantage. We may, perhaps, be charged 
with inconsistency in refusing to admit, as the foundation of 
generic groups in the Lapaces, characters which are allowed, 
not only by ourselves, but by some of those who are most stre- 
nuously opposed to the multiplication of genera, to have quite 
sufficient importance for such distinction in other families. 
With what propriety, it might be asked, can we admit Hydro- 
bates (Fuligula, Nob.), as distinct from Anas, and the various 
genera that have been dismembered from Lanzus, at the same 
time that we reject, as genera, the different groups of hawks ? 
To this we can only reply, that we are ourselves entirely con- 
vinced that all the subgenera adopted in our Synopsis among 
the Falcones of North America are quite as distinct from each 
other as Coccyzus and Cuculus, or Corvus and Garrulus. The 
latter genus we have admitted after Temminck, who is opposed 
to new genera among the hawks, though Astur and Hlanus 
certainly require to be separated no less than the two genera 
that Temminck himself has established in the old genus 
Vultur. 
No living naturalist (with the exception of those who, 
through a sort of pseudo-religious feeling, will only admit as 
genera groups indicated as such by Linné) has adhered Jonger 
than ourselves to large genera, at the same time that we could 
not deny the existence of subordinate natural groups. We will 
not pretend to deny that these are of equal rank with some re- 
cognised as genera in other families; and we can only say, that 
we consider it doubtful, in the present unsettled state of the 
