2 
COOPER’S HAWK. 
and analogies, that the author should be more or less acquainted 
with the whole system of nature. To attempt, without the aid 
of methodical arrangement, a subject so vast, and apparently 
unlimited, would be hopeless. Hence the importance of a correct 
system of classification; 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 employed in the study of nature. 
That division of the feathered class popularly called Birds of 
prey, has always been recognized 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 
grasshoppers, it is undeniable that there exists in all these birds, 
a great resemblance in some of the most prominent charac¬ 
teristics; which, being found to predominate 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, orni¬ 
thologists will probably for a long time continue to disagree. 
Equally great authorities might be cited in favour of either of 
these opinions, which like many others of more importance that 
