﻿324 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



when they regard points of comparative anatomy. We 

 candidly own, that, from placing implicit reliance upon 

 the statements of M. Cuvier, in regard to many forms 

 in this family which we had not personally examined., 

 and the impossibility of reconciling them to our own 

 views, we were induced, at the time, to abandon, in 

 utter despair, all attempts to work out the groups of this 

 family in Northern Zoology ; and we felt more dis- 

 heartened at this failure, from perceiving that those 

 very points of structure which we had conceived were 

 to lay the foundation of their natural arrangement, 

 were precisely those upon which the divisions in the 

 Regne Animal were professedly grounded, namely, the 

 form and structure of the ears, and the modifications of 

 the facial disk. Since our former notice, however, of 

 this family was published, we have had the means of 

 examining very many of the forms in question, and the 

 result has tended to show that very little reliance can 

 be placed upon the anatomical facts relative to this 

 family in the Regne Animal, To justify this opinion 

 we shall merely state one instance out of several. The 

 great American horned owl is placed in the genus 

 Otis, all the species of which are stated to have a mem- 

 branaceous operculum to the ear. On closely examin- 

 ing this bird, however, no such structure, as Dr. 

 Richardson has also asserted, will be discovered ; and 

 thus we find the European and the American horned 

 owls in two widely parted divisions. It is absolutely 

 necessary to advert to these facts ; for if errors in com- 

 parative anatomy, made by so high an authority, are 

 passed over in silence, they will still be received as 

 truths, unless pointedly adverted to by those who may 

 detect them. Having stated thus much, we shall not 

 enumerate other objections which may be urged against 

 the existing arrangements of the family, but proceed at 

 once to lay our own before the reader. 



(260.) We have already shown that the formation 

 of the ear, the eye, and the facial disk, are the pecu- 

 liar distinctions of this family ; and it follows that the 



