364 
COOPER’S HAWK. 
hopeless. Hence the importance of a correct system of classi- 
fication ; and the construction of one which shall exhibit, as 
far as practicable, the true affinities of objects, has exercised 
the attention of the most powerful minds that have been em- 
ployed in the study of nature. 
That division of the feathered class popularly called birds 
of prey, has always been recognised as a separate and well 
defined group. In the Linnean System they form the order 
Accipitres, and were, by that father of the science, distributed 
into three great natural divisions, which comprise nearly, if 
not quite, one-fifteenth part of all the known species of birds. 
The ulterior arrangement of one of these groups, the genus 
Falco of Linne, at present composed of between two and three 
hundred species, has much divided the opinions of naturalists. 
From the majestic eagle, the terror of the husbandman, to the 
feeblest hawk, preying on grashoppers, it is undeniable that 
there exists in all these birds a great resemblance in some of 
the most prominent characteristics, which, being found to pre- 
dominate in the fish hawk, as well as the kite, and all other 
species of the falcon tribe, however dissimilar, indicate their 
separation as a peculiar family from all other birds. But that 
they are susceptible of division into smaller groups of inferior 
rank, no practical ornithologist will for a moment deny. 
Whether these minor groups shall be considered as trivial and 
secondary, or whether some of them ought not to be admitted 
as distinct and independent genera, is a question that has been 
much agitated, and respecting which ornithologists will proba- 
bly for a long time continue to disagree. Equally great autho- 
rities might be cited in favour of either of these opinions, 
which, like many others of more importance that have divided 
mankind from the beginning of the world, may perhaps, after 
all, be considered as merely a dispute about words. 
Admitting, however, as seems to be done by all parties, that 
this great genus may be subdivided with propriety, we look 
upon it as altogether a secondary question, whether we shall 
call the minor groups genera, subgenera, or sections ; and we 
