ADVERTISEMENT 
same proportion we are obliged to reduce it ; but we are 
satisfied of its necessity, and must in truth submit. Our 
assertions have not been incautiously advanced : they are 
the result of mature deliberation, and authentic evidences; 
our inferences being for the most part taken from the origi- 
nal drawings and manuscripts, to which those very writers 
were indebted for their information, or from the indivi- 
dual specimens described in ditferent collections, which 
have been since concentrated in our possession, and at 
present constitute a part of our own Museum. 
