FAMILY OF LANIAD^. 
3 
becomes more extensive, or rather, from the want of some 
generalising principle of classification — more confused. 
^Vhy the philosophy of Zoology is to stand stiU, while 
that of all other sciences is rapidly advancing, and con- 
sequently simplifying, and why we are not to generalise 
that which we know, from a fear of there existing things 
which we do not, and probably never shall, know, are 
questions almost too absurd to be asked. 
(2.) The limits of one volume (for our first is almost 
entirely an introduction) are totally inadequate to that 
ample elucidation of the natural classification of birds 
which the professed ornithologist would desire, particu- 
larly when the arrangement we shall here propose, from 
its novelty, would seem to require so much expla- 
nation. \Te possess sufficient materials, indeed, for 
filling four such volumes as this ,• but the original por- 
tion devoted to Ornithology having been already ex- 
ceeded, there remains no other plan to be followed than 
taking a rapid survey of the chief divisions, dwelling 
occasionally upon such as require more than ordinary 
elucidation, and giving, in some instances only, examples 
of that extended analysis which becomes necessary to 
full demonstration, and by which the circular groups we 
shall here indicate may be better understood. 
(3.) The rapacious habits of the LANiADiB, or shrikes, 
are known to every one acquainted with our native birds ; 
and the comparisons that have been drawn between 
them and the falcons are no less true in fact, than 
beautiful in analogy. Many of the falcon species sit on 
a tree for hours, watching for such little birds as come 
within reach of a sudden sweep* ; it then pounces on its 
quarry, seizes it by its talons, bears it to its roost, and de- 
vours it piecemeal. These are precisely the manners of the 
true shrike ; yet, with all this, the structure of the two 
birds, and their more intimate relations, are so different, 
that they cannot be classed in the same order : they il- 
lustrate, indeed, that system of symbolic relationship, 
termed analogy, which pervades creation ; but the two 
* Dr. Richardson, in Northern Zoology, vol. iL p. 32, &c. 
