FALCONIFORMES. 
active and useful labor in the field of science. As I listened to Wilcox’s 
account, the conceit entered my mind that these two men were banished, 
as it were, from the scientific world of the Atlantic shores, for the great 
crime of burdening zoology with the false though much labored theory which 
has thrown so much confusion into the subject of its classification and 
philosophical study.” 
It is probable a different view may now be taken of Macleay’s theory, 
inasmuch as it endowed Swainson with the desire to test its working and 
consequently, as in many other cases, a wrong theory is better than none at 
all. It is more than probable that the theory and its great advocacy by 
many master minds was responsible for more accurate work by its opponents 
and this would entail greater research and consequently greater benefits 
would accrue. 
The theory was an intricate one, which endeavoured to see analogies 
to a quinary cycle of life in every object, and workers such as Swainson and 
Kaup set out to prove this. The necessity of seeing these analogies demanded 
close attention to the objects under observation and this close application 
was necessarily conducive of new results. That these observations were 
wrongly construed is at present a matter of small import : the fact that 
they were put on record constitutes the great value of the work. Kaup, 
then, being enamoured of this theory, took up the Birds of Prey as a 
suitable object of study, and his first result was their dethronement. He 
then criticised all the birds available to recognise and fix; his analogies, 
as demanded by his theory, and discovered many new facts. His diagnoses 
in the paper under notice show how carefully he examined the birds. His 
writings show him to have been careful and thoughtful and he was one 
of the first to recognise that monography was the only real means of 
advancement. He came to England to study the birds in the British 
Museum, and then observed that had he the whole of the specimens of 
one family from every Museum in his own place he could do better work 
by studying that one family thoroughly than in any other way. Scores 
of years afterward his dictum is absolutely true. Yet he laboured under 
the false theory so much despised by Stimpson. It seems, here, that the 
theory was productive of good, though itself inherently bad. ’ 
Kaup’s conclusions as shown in the Contributions can be summarized 
thus. It was the object of the theory to show that all nature was divisible 
into series of fives, and the first was closely related to the fifth so that 
a circle was completed. Consequently he divided the family Falconidse 
into five subfamilies, commencing with the Falconinse, followed by Milvinse, 
then Accipitrinse, then Aquilinse, and lastly Buteoninse, which was considered 
3 
