﻿348 ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



find in every group, whether large or small, these 

 aberrant divisions, or forms, which represent the other 

 primary types of nature. How completely this law is 

 verified in the circle before us will presently appear. 

 Now it is upon the analysis we shall ultimately give 

 of this tribe that we wish the accuracy of our whole 

 arrangement of the feathered creation to repose. All 

 the details regarding their internal affinities must, of 

 necessity, be included in our systematic arrangement of 

 birds, intended for the second volume ; but the analo- 

 gies resulting from this analysis are so highly interest- 

 ing, and, at the same time, so demonstrative of the 

 propositions stated in a former volume on the laws of 

 natural classification*, that they must carry conviction 

 to the mind of every naturalist who is at the trouble of 

 investigating the facts upon which they are founded. 



(290.) Analogical relations of a group are not, as some 

 writers suppose, the cause, but the effect, of its natural ar- 

 rangement. The clue of affinity is first sought for, and 

 then, and not till then, do we seek for a uniform law of 

 variation in its analogies. It would, therefore, be better, 

 perhaps, had we began with giving the affinities of our 

 groups in the first instance, and then have proceeded to 

 show what analogical results could be drawn from them : 

 the cause would then precede the effect. On the other 

 hand, it may be said that, by stating the analogies in 

 the first instance, we are, in fact, stating only so many 

 propositions, the correctness of which is subsequently 

 to be made good by the process of analysing affinities. 

 It was under this last point of view that we acted upon 

 the plan we shall now continue ; that is, of stating the 

 analogies in the first instance, and the affinities after- 

 wards; although it is obvious that the former could 

 never have been attained, without the latter had been 

 first studied. In first instituting a most extensive com- 

 parison of the Dentirostres with the other tribes in 

 eluded in this order, we shall have occasion to notice 

 many groups, whose details will be entered upon after 



* Classification of Animals. \ ^ 



