﻿246 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



legists who do not sufficiently understand their group, to 

 bring into its definition all the characters, without dis- 

 crimination^, that it presents : hence they are led to use a 

 number of comparative terms, such as rostrum subrec- 

 tum, subforte, subiongum, &c. — indefinite words which 

 perplex the reader before he reaches the truly essential 

 character, and encumbers the definition with a multi- 

 plicity of unnecessary terms. In monographs, indeed, 

 this verbosity can be allowed ; but even there the essential 

 characters should be kept separate, as a sort of table of 

 contents to the more laboured general definition which 

 followed. In all this the zoologists of the present day have 

 lost sight of the admirable simplicity, and,, more than all, 

 the masterly perspicuity of Linnaeus. The best and 

 neatest generic definitions are those of Temminck's .Ma- 

 nuel : the most verbose and over-laboured, those of the 

 Species Avium, Even those of Illiger are too tedious. 

 The same remarks are equally applicable to specific cha- 

 racters : by Linnaeus they were made abridged descrip- 

 tions of those peculiarities alone which distinguished the 

 species, without noticing others ; so that the eye might 

 run over and get the substance of twenty of these in the 

 same time that would be necessary to read two of those 

 in the Species Avium, where, in point of fact, there are no 

 true specific characters. We cannot too often insist on the 

 daily increasing importance of condensing and simplify- 

 ing the details of a science becoming necessarily every 

 year more and more extensive, as we gain a greater ac- 

 quaintance with the productions of nature. 



(207.) On proceeding to the descriptions of species, 

 however, we can scarcely be too minute ; for the essential 

 characters by which one may differ from another are 

 often so slight, that however they may be perceived on 

 comparing the birds together, it is only by minute de- 

 tails upon paper, that they can be definitely expressed. 

 After the specific character, therefore, has been suc- 

 cinctly drawn up and elaborated, we should proceed to 

 describe, if any, and what, deviation there is from the 

 strictly typical form of the group in which we have 



