MAGAZINE 
OF 
ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY 
ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 
I. On the Natural History and Relations of the Family of Cucu- 
lidce or Cuckoos, with a view to determine the series of their va- 
riation. By WILLIAM SWAINSON, F. R. &. L. S. &c. 
IN submitting to the scientific world the result of my investiga- 
tions on this and all other natural groups of the Animal Kingdom, 
it is perhaps needless to premise that they have been conducted 
with the object of accumulating additional proofs of the validity of 
those views on the system of creation, the principles of which 
have been so amply detailed in the treatise " on the Classification 
of Animals/' and illustrated by examples in that upon quadrupeds. 
The ornithological volumes of the same series, now in the press, 
will enable the unprejudiced naturalist to determine the truth or 
fallacy of these views ; and whether my original propositions re- 
ceive further confirmation in this most attractive department of 
nature. It is nevertheless impossible, upon a subject so vast, to 
enter into those minute details, in every instance, relative to each 
family, which should alone satisfy the philosophic inquirer : espe- 
cially where the object of the treatises just alluded to is rather the 
condensation of results, than the detail of those facts upon which 
these results are grounded. Some few of the groups of ornithology 
have been analyzed in the Fauna Boreali-Americana, or Northern 
Zoology, and others will be laid before the public, for the first 
time, in the series abow* alluded to ; but the limited extent of two 
volumes, to which the ornithological treatise is restricted, will oblige 
me to confine the elucidation of the greater portion of the families 
to a narrow compass. It is, therefore, with a view of supplying the 
NO. III. P 
