8426 



Notices of New Books. 



&c, all of whom have contributed more or less to pave the way for 

 the complete monograph now offered to the public from the pen and 

 pencil of Mr. Gould. 



The comprehensive question of natural affinities may be said to 

 pervade every part of Mr. Gould's c Introduction,' since it embraces 

 every character, whether structural, economical or physiological, of 

 any group of animals, and therefore, without following the exact order 

 in which Mr. Gould has arranged the different branches of his subject, I 

 shall extract most of his preliminary observations, arranging them after 

 my own fashion. Let me, then, recommend my readers carefully to pe- 

 ruse what Mr. Gould has written on these several subjects, and I will 

 endeavour to extract from this source reasons for not agreeing with those 

 views of the affinities of humming birds which have latterly become pre- 

 valent, and which Mr. Gould seems rather to favour without giving 

 in his unqualified adhesion. 



The subject of bird affinities is fraught with no small difficulty, and 

 the difficulty is increased by the apparently ineradicable antipathy that 

 all ornithologists evince to anything approaching a natural or physio- 

 logical classification of birds. Nothing can be more unnatural than 

 what is called the Vigorsian or quinarian arrangement, and yet this 

 artificial and fanciful system has now been in vogue in Great Britain 

 for more than twenty years; arid on the Continent, where our quinary 

 and ternary systems are matters of great mirth, naturalists are agreed 

 in adopting the scarcely less objectionable method of admeasurement. 

 When Cuvier pronounced in favour of structure as the guide to be 

 employed in classification, he enunciated a theory which has fettered 

 the lucubrations of all subsequent systematists ; even the quinarians 

 and ternarians have never made the slightest attempt to emancipate 

 Science from the thraldom of admeasurements, but have added thereto 

 the additional thraldom of numbers. Mr. Gould takes a somewhat more 

 liberal view of system than either the counters or the measurers, and is 

 willing to consult habit and economy ; but I cannot feel quite certain 

 at what conclusions he has arrived farther than these ; first , that the 

 humming birds most nearly resemble the swifts; secondly , that they 

 are nevertheless sufficiently different to constitute a distinct order. I 

 will, however, proceed at once to Mr. Gould's general observations on 

 the natural affinities of humming birds, only premising that the whole 

 of his remarks are made in the true spirit of philosophical research, 

 and are scarcely susceptible of improvement, except inasmuch as he 

 has studied the views of others somewhat more seriously than they 

 deserve. 



