494 
REVIEWS OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. 
On the 'Natural History and Classification of Birds. By William Swainsoj?^ 
A.C.G., F. R, S., F. L. S. 5 &C. Vol. II. London: Longman and Co., and 
John Taylor. 1837. 12mo. pp. 398. 
The present volume contains a brief but masterly explanation of the affinities 
of Dentirostres.^ Raso7'es, Grallatoi^es, and Naiatores, or the Dentirostral birds. 
Gallinaceous birds, Waders, and Swimmers, illustrated by numerous wood-cuts. 
The work is for the most part written in our author s usual philosophic spirit, 
but we greatly dislike the tone of the following extract :■— 
If our opponents, by any theory of their own, equally comprehensive, can explain and illus¬ 
trate what this cannot do, we will then not only consent to abandon our propositions as unten¬ 
able, but adopt any other more demonstrative of the unity of Nature’s laws. Until this, how¬ 
ever, is done, or until something more philosophic is urged against us than the old reiterated 
assertion that “■ the time has not yet come ” for these investigations, &c. &c., we may be 
allowed to preserve silence: these vague and querulous complaints, in truth, have emanated 
fVom those only who have hitherto done nothing to place their names in the prominent ranks of 
science, and who may consequently be presumed inadequate judges upon matters they have not 
sufficiently studied.—p. 2. 
Mr. SwAiNsoN is here alluding to the leading article in the first number of the 
Magazme of Zoology and Botany., by Mr. Jenyns. It is, to say the least, un- 
courteous to judge thus harshly of so excellent a naturalist as Mr. J., who was 
merely expressing the individual opinion at which he had arrived respecting the 
classification; and, if to either of these gentlemen, we should in this instance be 
inclined to ascribe the “ querulous complaints ” to Mr. Swainson. 
We believe the quinary system to be more in accordance with Nature than any 
other arrangement hitherto promulgated. In this country it appears to have 
been adopted by almost every naturalist of note who has impartially investigated 
the theory. On the other hand we are not aware of its having ever been opposed 
with anything like success. It has been sufficiently ridiculed in private, but 
never openly and fairly grappled with in public. Naturalists holding contrary 
views must either consider the subject too absurd to be gravely discussed, or 
there must be a lack of real objections to the system. Some years ago an attack 
upon the doctrine was published in the second edition of Montagu’s Ornithological 
Dictionary., by a gentleman evidently little acquainted with the subject. At¬ 
tempted demolitions of the quinary system have likewise appeared in the Maga¬ 
zine of Nahiral History (Vol. IX., we believe), by Peter Rylands, Esq., and 
Mr. Blytii. 
