LETTER TO W. SWAINSON, ESQ. 193 



to the depredations of the moth, or be affected by 

 damp. 



I have written on the landing, the career, and the de- 

 predations of the Hanoverian rat in this country. I 

 formerly delivered in Leeds a very long lecture, to show 

 the necessity of reform in Museums both at home and 

 abroad ; proving, at the same time, how specimens might 

 be prepared on scientific principles. I have shown how 

 a man ought to fight the feline, and how the canine, 

 tribe of animals. All this, and much more, has been 

 conveyed in language so plain and simple, that a school- 

 boy in rudiments can understand it. 



Now let us peep into the Natural History and Clas- 

 sification of Birds by the Market-Naturalist. 



You have given us a series of Circles, which would 

 puzzle Sir Isaac Newton himself; and which will tend 

 to scare nine- tenths of the votaries of ornithology clear 

 out of the field. 



Your nomenclature has caused me the jaw- ache. 



Gampsonyx Swainsonii, Lophophorus, Tachipetes, 

 Pachycephala, Thamnophilinae, Dendrocolaptes, Myiagra 

 rubiculoi'des, Ceblepyrinae, Ptilonorynchus, Opistholo- 

 phus, Palaeornis, Meliphagidae, Eurylaimus, Phalacroco- 

 rax, and a host of others. 



Your criticisms are really unpardonable. 



What you have given us in the book before me, con- 

 cerning Mr. Audubon, is utterly at variance with that 

 which you gave on his first arrival amongst us.* You 



* In -July, 1828, Mr. Swainson tells us, that Audubon 

 " drank of the pure stream of knowledge at its fountain 

 head." — See his criticism appended at the end of Audubon's 

 Biography of Birds. In 1836 Mr. Swainson tells us, that 

 Audubon's "scientific descriptions are destitute of that pre- 

 cision and detail which might have been expected in these 



O 



