LINNiEAN SYSTEM. 



xxvii 



"fly in the air, and sing," # forgetting that more than two-thirds of 

 all the known species of birds never sing; and that many birds, such 

 as the cassowary, the ostrich, and the penguin, cannot fly for want 

 of sufficient wings. In the same vein, we are told of his small birds, 

 (Passeres,) that they are "vocal, and feed the young by thrusting 

 the food down their throats." It is also said, " nest formed with 

 wonderful art."f Whence we must of course infer that the fly- 

 catchers, (Muscicapidce, Vigors,) certainly, with few exceptions, 

 the most silent of all birds, are " vocal;" and that the flimsy nest 

 of the nightingale, and the few straws collected by the larks 

 and other ground builders, though arranged with much neat- 

 ness, constitute a " nest formed with wonderful art." The story 

 of thrusting or ramming food down the throats of the young, is 

 at variance with the observation of every boy who ever robbed a 

 bird's nest. 



The late Dr. Heineken, an unquestionably good naturalist, 

 justly characterises Gmelin, a well-known disciple of this school, 

 as having an " instinctive propensity towards the erroneous, (an 

 obliquity by no means unusual with this sort of gentry)." He 

 also says, " Gmelin's thirteenth edition of Linnaeus, as it is called, 

 I have had the good fortune never to be burdened with." [Tem- 

 minck calls it 4 the most indigested book in existence,' J] "but in an 

 evil hour, a kind friend bestowed upon me the seven ponderous 

 tomes of that kindred spirit, Turton."§ It is worth remarking 

 that the good sense of the English public never encouraged this 

 latter work, which may now be had for little more than the price 

 of waste paper, along with a book of similar trash — Moh's Natu- 

 ral History System of Mineralogy, by Haidinger; at the very 

 time, too, when the works of genuine naturalists, such as White's 

 Selborne, and Knapp's Journal of a Naturalist, are selling by 

 thousands : facts of more weight than any argument in proof of 

 my position. Cicero was advised by his friends not to write his 



* Turton's Linnaeus, i. 4. " Ayes. Aereae vocales volucres pulcherrimae. — 

 Alis duobus pennatis volitantes bipedes dignoscuntur." — Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. 

 vol. i. p. 109, edit. 12th. 



f Turton p. 132. " Nidus artificiosus ; Pullis cibus incalcandus."— -Linnaeus, 

 Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 116, edit. 12th. 



% Manuel d'Ornith., Avant-propos, p. xxxii. § Zool. Journ. v. 73. 



