RUDIMENT AL NATURALISTS. 



iv 



will forthwith correct it ; and I shall most willingly publish as 

 an appendix, any rejoinder to my objections, or defence of the 

 principles and the language, which seem to me so pregnant 

 with error. I know not in what way I could act with more 

 fairness. 



After all, I confess I think the Quinary system furnishes, so 

 far as birds are concerned, a neat, pretty, and elegant mode of 

 arranging the specimens in a circular cabinet, and, till I looked 

 at its principles and its language a little more closely, I had 

 intended to terminate this brief sketch by a systematic table 

 of British Birds, arranged in accordance with this method. 

 But for the reasons above assigned, I think this would be highly 

 injudicious; while instead of conciliating the disciples of the 

 school, they would probably exclaim against it, inasmuch as 

 they cannot always complete their series of affinities, among the 

 birds of one country or district, it being sometimes necessary 

 to go as far as Australia,* or the Antediluvian f ages to fill 

 up a deficiency. Farther, as each collector is usually attached 

 to some peculiar system, I have determined to substitute, instead 

 of such a table, a short catalogue of Naturalists, chiefly those 

 who have attended to birds, arranged according to the character 

 of their productions, by which the student may be somewhat 

 guided in his reading, according to the peculiar bent of his 

 mind. I accordingly make three classes, the Rudimenial, from 

 whom the alphabet is to be learned ; the Literary ; and the 

 Philosophic. 



I. RUDIMENTAL NATURALISTS. 



Works consisting of descriptive catalogues, chiefly of museum 

 specimens, arranged systematically ; including either whole 

 classes or particular groups of animals, the latter termed Mono- 

 graphs, and only useful to aid the student in identifying speci- 

 mens by form, colour, and structure, commonly omitting historical 

 and philosophical details, and rarely like the beautiful accounts of 

 the British swallows, which White of Selborne called by the now 



* Vigors in Linn. Trans, vol. xiv, p. 409. f MacLeay, Ibid, vol. xiv. p. 54. 



