xxvi 



LINNiEAN SYSTEM. 



This is all which we are taught to believe " the industry of 

 man has been able to discover concerning it ; " unless we suppose 

 that Linnaeus by this means the references which he gives to ante- 

 cedent authors.* Pennant's description of the bird, though he had 

 before him, in manuscript, the admirable account of a genuine 

 naturalist, White of Selborne, is no less brief and poor ; and 

 Latham's, though a little more circumstantial, is very meagre ; f 

 while Cuvier's is equally brief, and half of it consists of credulous 

 absurdity, asserting as " well authenticated, that it falls into a le- 

 thargic state during the winter, and even that it passes that season 

 at the bottom of marshy waters ! ! ! " J Well may Dr. Fleming 

 say, " it is painful to advert to the second era of British Zoology, 

 during which the artificial method of Linnaeus occupied that place, 

 which physiology had so successfully filled." § Yet though Dr. 

 Fleming deserves the esteem of every lover of nature for his Phi- 

 losophy of Zoology, his subsequent work on the History of British 

 Animals is more decidedly formed on the faulty model of the 

 Linnaean school, than that of Pennant which he stigmatises, and 

 has no pretensions whatever to the title of History : his account 

 of the bank swallow, indeed, is much inferior to that of Latham. 



I may be told that these several works cannot be justly com- 

 pared, as their objects are different; but I answer, that they all 

 exhibit a similar character of Linnaean brevity, which I call defi- 

 ciency, and consequently inaccuracy. 



In constructing his system of birds, Linnaeus looked only at 

 the various forms of the bill, whence he makes six divisions or 

 orders, the water birds most unnaturally ranking in the third and 

 fourth, and separating the pies and the poultry (Gallince.) In 

 the descriptions of these orders, his inaccuracy in his attempts 

 at generalization is very apparent. We were prepared for this, 

 indeed, from his description of birds in general, which, he says, 



* Ibid, page 3 ; " Hoc nomen indigitat quaecunque de nominate- capere 

 beneficio seculi innotuere." — Linnaeus, Syst. Nat. Intr. 



f Gen. Hist, of Birds, vii. 289. 

 % Griffith's Cuvier, vii. 61 . — " Brune dessus et a la poitrine ; la gorge et le 

 dessous blancs. Elle pond dans des trous le long des eaux. II parait constant 

 qu'elle s'engourdit pendant l'liiver, et meme qu'elle passe cette saison au 

 fond de l'eau des marais." — Regne Animal, Tome i. p. 396. 



§ British Animals, Pref. viii. 



