RUDIMENTAL NATURALISTS. , Iv 
will forthwith correct it ; and 1 shall most willingly publish as 
an appendix, any rejoinder to my objections, or defence of the 
principles and the language, which seem to me so pregnant 
with error. I know not in what way I could act with more 
fairness. 
After all, I confess I think the Quinary system furnishes, so 
far as birds are concerned, a neat, pretty, and elegant mode of 
arranging the specimens in a circular cabinet, and, till I looked 
at its principles and its language a little more closely, I had 
intended to terminate this brief sketch by a systematic table 
of British Birds, arranged in accordance with this method. 
But for the reasons above assigned, I think this would be highly 
injudicious; while instead of conciliating the disciples of the 
school, they would probably exclaim against it, inasmuch as 
they cannot always complete their series of affinities, ^among the 
birds of one country or district, it being sometimes necessary 
to go as far as Australia,* or the Antediluvian f ages to fill 
up a deficiency. Farther, as each collector is usually attached 
to some peculiar system, I have determined to substitute, instead 
of such a table, a short catalogue of Naturalists, chiefly those 
who have attended to birds, arranged according to the character 
of their productions, by which the student may be somewhat 
guided in his reading, according to the peculiar bent of his 
mind, I accordingly make three classes, the Rudimental^ from 
whom the alphabet is to be learned ; the Literary ; and the 
Philosojdiic, 
I. Rudimental Naturalists. 
Works consisting of descriptive catalogues, chiefly of museum 
specimens, arranged systematically ; including either whole 
classes or particular groups of animals, the latter termed Mono- 
graphs, and only useful to aid the student in identifying speci- 
mens by form, colour, and structure, commonly omitting historical 
and philosophical details, and rarely like the beautiful accounts of 
the British swallows, which White of Selborne called by the now 
* Vigors in Linn. Trans, vol. xiv, p. 409. f MacLeay, Ibid, vol. xiv. p. 54. 
