44 
SYSTEM OF NATURE. 
of ornithology, and the following list gives the number of 
primary divisions adopted by each :— 
Nitzsch, Schoepss. 3 
Viellot, Vigors, MacLeay, Swainson 5 
Linneus, Cuvier, Dumeril, Carus ... 6 
Latreille, Illiger. 7 
Scopoli, Latham, Myers, Wolf. 9 
Temminck. 13 
Grant. 16 
Seliceffer. 17 
Brisson . 28 
Lacepede . 38 
The above table is extracted from Mr. Kirby’s c Bridg¬ 
water Treatise,’* the reverend author himself adopting the 
septenary division, but this appears rather the result of an 
ideal value attached to the number seven than from any 
participation in the views which I have taken of natural 
arrangement. I think it must be admitted that this great 
diversity of opinion, as regards numerical division, militates 
most forcibly against the supposition that any number is 
strikingly apparent. 
I cannot pretend to the possession of sufficient know¬ 
ledge of birds to give anything approaching to a correct 
division of them, but the principles on which I should 
conduct the enquiry are those by which I have attempted 
to prove the distinctness and integrity of the marsupials. 
At the very threshold of the enquiry, birds seem to me 
divisible into those which climb—as we see a parrot when 
in captivity, — those which fly, those which leap, those 
* Kirby’s Bridgw. Treat, ii. 444. 
