FEMALE INDIGO FINCH. 
447 
the female is far more interesting and important than that of 
the male^ as it belongs equally to the young, and to the adult 
male after the autumnal moult, and previous to the change 
which ensues in the spring,— -a large proportion of the life of 
the bird. 
The importance of a knowledge of these changes will also 
be duly estimated on recurring to the copious synonymy at 
the head of our article, by which it will be seen that several 
nominal species have been made by naturalists who chanced to 
describe this bird during its transitions from one state to an- 
other. Errors of this kind too frequently disfigure the fair pages 
of zoology, owing to the ridiculous ambition of those pseudo- 
naturalists, who, without taking the trouble to make investiga- 
tions, for which indeed they are perhaps incompetent, glory in 
proclaiming a new species established on a single individual, and 
merely on account of a spot, or some such trifling particular ! 
The leading systematists who have enlarged the boundaries of 
our science, have too readily admitted such species, partly 
compelled to it perhaps by the deficiency of settled principles. 
But the more extensive and accurate knowledge which orni- 
thologists have acquired within a few years relative to the 
changes that birds undergo, will render them more cautious, 
in proportion as the scientific world will be less disposed to 
excuse them for errors arising from this source. Linne may 
be profitably resorted to as a model of accuracy in this respect, 
his profound sagacity leading him in many instances to reject 
species which had received the sanction even of the experienced 
Brisson. Unfortunately Gmelin, who pursued a practice di- 
rectly the opposite, and compiled with a careless and indis- 
criminating hand, has been the oracle of zoologists for twenty 
years. The thirteenth edition of the Systema Naturm undoubt- 
edly retarded the advancement of knowledge instead of pro- 
moting it ; and if Latham had erected his ornithological edifice 
on the chaste and durable Linnean basis, the superstructure 
would have been far more elegant. But he first misled Gmelin, 
and afterwards suffered himself to be misled by him, and was 
