538 
MR MACGILLITRAY ON THE 
rieties of a species. And knowing this, would it not be 
a more judicious plan to have a series of characters, pecu- 
liarly applicable to each variety of a species, in order to 
discriminate or designate that form with precision ? In that 
case, the student,— and the most accomplished naturalist 
must never hope to be more than a student, — could deter- 
mine a 'particular animal with precision, by comparing it 
with the series of specific characters. Nor is it by any 
means the case, that, even from such a series, a general 
character could be elicited, by taking the common points, 
for, according to our present knowledge, no such common 
points can be indicated. What, for example, is there in 
common in the plumage, much less colour, of the very old, 
middle aged, adult, third year, second year, first year, 
new-fledged and nestling, male and female Goshawk Yet 
it is obvious, that, unless a specific character could compre- 
hend something common to all these, it cannot be perfect. 
Such a character, if elicited, would prove to be an anato- 
mical one ; but how far distant is modern anatomy from 
the hope of this precision ? Natural History does not found 
her distinctions upon investigations of internal structure : 
it is from the remoter, but to us more obvious, forms and 
qualities, which are manifested at the extremity, as it were, 
of the animated mass, where external causes exert their 
more immediate influence, and to guard against whose en- 
croachments those very forms and qualities are adapted, 
being modified according to the peculiar circumstances of 
each specific mode of life, that we must take our charac- 
ters, — from circumstances that are more unmediately with- 
in our reach. Of those circumstances, surely colour cannot 
be the most important, nor shall I transgress farther upon 
your indulgence, by making any other remarks upon the 
defects attendant upon adherence to it. The forms and 
quahties of the feathers certainly do not aflbrd characters 
