P R E F A C E. 
SYSTEM. 
Considering the many fyftems that have been offered to the 
public of late years *, I hope I lliall not be accufed of national 
partiality, in giving the preference to that compofed by Mr. Ray 
in 1667, and afterwards publifhed in 1678. It would be unfair 
to conceal the writer, from whom our great countryman took 
the original hint of forming that fyftem, which has fmce proved 
the foundation of all that has been compofed fince that period. 
It was a Frenchman , Belon of Mans , who firft attempted 
to range birds according to their natures, and performed 
great matters, considering the unenlightened age he lived in ; 
for his book was publifhed in 1555. His arrangement of 
rapacious birds is as judicious as that of the lateft writers ; 
for his fecond chapter treats of Vultures, Falcons, Shrikes, 
and Owls , in the two next, he pafles over to the Web- 
footed Water-fowl, and to the Cloven-footed ; in the fifth, he 
includes the Gallinaceous and Struthious, but mixes with 
them the Plovers, Buntings, and Larks •, in the fixth are 
the Pies, Pigeons, and Thrushes ; and the feventh takes in 
the reft of the Passerine order. 
Notwithstanding the great defeats that every naturalift 
will at once fee in the arrangement of the lefier birds of 
this writer, yet he will obferve a re&itude of intention in 
* ByM. Barren of Perpignan in 1745, Mr. Klein in 1 750, Mr. Moebring in 1753, 
M. Brijfon in 1760, and by Linnaus at different periods. Mr. Ray formed (in. 
conjunction with Mr. Wiliughby) his tables of animals, in the winter 1 667, 
for the ule of Bilhop Wilkin’s real char after. 
D 2 
general, 
