﻿PECULIARITIES OF THE CLASS. 



3 



and uniformly prevail ; and whose parts, whether large 

 or small, are intimately and harmoniously connected 

 with all others in the chain of heing. We presume 

 that those who desire to understand and enter into the 

 views here developed, have made themselves already 

 acquainted with the ordinary nomenclature of the 

 science, and with the different denomination of groups 

 which it contains.* The habits and instincts of birds and 

 other animals will form a distinct treatise in this series, 

 while their technical internal structure will be left to 

 the physiologist. Their comparative anatomy, as ex- 

 hibited in their external construction, is that part of 

 the science upon which we shall more particularly ex- 

 patiate : first, because there is no work of this de- 

 scription at all calculated for the present state of science ; 

 and, secondly, because every modification of form in- 

 dicates a corresponding peculiarity of food, habit, or 

 manners. This subject, which will occupy the greater 

 part of our present volume, will render it more par- 

 ticularly an Introduction to Modern Ornithology. 

 The Bibliography and Nomenclature of Birds will then 

 follow ; after which we shall lay before the naturalist 

 such a systematic arrangement of the different groups 

 as appears to us most in accordance with nature. 



(3.) It is easy to perceive that Birds form one of the 

 grand divisions of vertebrated animals ; that which is 

 most strongly marked, and that which is most isolated. 

 A body covered with feathers, instead of hair or wool, 

 and the two fore feet transformed into wings, is the 

 form under which Nature has now developed one of 

 the most lovely groups in creation. The structure of 

 birds adapts them for inhabiting an element, from 

 which quadrupeds, and even man, is excluded. They 

 seem to wander over the regions of space, with 

 an ease and celerity of which there is no parallel 

 in nature. With few exceptions, they are the most 

 gifted with the power of locomotion ; since, as it has 



* On the Classification of Animals, p. 266. 

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