518 
ME MACGILLIVIIAY ON THE 
of systematic ornithology, nor is it my intention to find 
fault with the grouping of specific forms as made by dif^ 
ferent naturalists, according to the limited or extended op- 
portunities or knowledge, or faculties of perception or dis- 
crimination, which they may have possessed : my object is 
to rectify a series of misapprehensions,— a want of method, 
and still more of precision, — a laxity of characterisation, 
productive of a useless, tiresome, and unphilosophical 
diffuseness of expression, on the one hand,— and, on the 
other, of an awkward and unsuccessful wresting of marksj 
not in themselves sufficiently important, to answer particu- 
lar purposes, which, in many instances, may, with as much 
probability of truth, be construed into a desire for celebrity^ 
as into a regard for the advancement of science. 
The want of sufficiently precise and distinctive characters 
to designate the various species of birds, cannot have passed 
unobserved by any who have been in the habit of consult- 
ing systematic arrangements. From the concise characters 
of the great Linnaeus, to the exuberant and seemingly 
comprehensive ones of the justly celebrated Temminck, 
we find, among considerable diversity of method, and va- 
riety of manner, few that can bear the test of critical ex- 
amination. 
Of the different modes of characterising the specific forms 
of the feathered tribes, I shall mention a few, and those the 
most generally adopted, stating, at the same time, their 
peculiar deficiencies ; but previous to this, it becomes ne- 
cessary to propose a short series of aphorisms, containing 
some of the principal points upon which the ultimate object 
of all classification is founded. These aphorisms will admit 
of little discussion : they are generally acknowledged truths, 
and which, it is conceived, must arise spontaneously, as it 
were, in the mind of any one who, in thinking seriously 
