rank they may be allowed to hold as logicians, were at all events very dexterous thieves, stole the memorandum book in which Mr Anderson had recorded a specimen of their language.  But admitting Mr S.’s suppositions, it then may be shewn, that not only the sheep and the goats, but also the horses and cows, considered, in the words of Mr S., as new animals, would have been referred by these islanders to the same genus, and therefore considered as birds.  The circumstance of their greater size, or, indeed, any other discernible difference, cannot here be pleaded as exceptive, without in reality abandoning the principles on which the solution is constructed.  On the whole, perhaps, it may seem more correct to imagine, that these islanders were struck with some fanciful and distant resemblance to certain birds they were acquainted with, from which they hastily inferred identity of nature, notwithstanding some very visible discrepancies; whereas the remarkable dissimilarity betwixt the new quadrupeds and those they were previously acquainted with, impressed their minds with the notion of complete contrariety.  In other words, they concluded, from the unlikeness, that these animals were neither dogs nor hogs, and, from the resemblance, that they were birds.  It is erroneous to say, with Cook, that there is not the most distant similitude between a sheep or goat, and any winged animal.  For the classifications adopted in every system of natural history, proceed upon the discovery of still more remote resemblances among the objects of the science, than such as may be noticed in the present case; and it will almost always be found, that there is greater difficulty in ascertaining differences amongst those objects which are allied, than similarity amongst those which are unconnected.  The facility with which ideas are associated in the mind, as Mr S. informs us, p. 295, is very different in different individuals, and “lays the foundation of remarkable varieties of men both in respect of genius and of character;” and he elsewhere (p. 291) admits, “that things which have no known relation to each other are often associated, in consequence of their producing similar effects on the mind.”  With respect to the former remark, the facility, it might be practicable to shew, that, in general, it is proportioned to the ignorance and imperfect education, of the individuals, hence children and the female sex (as Mr S. himself asserts) exhibit most of it; and, in consistency with the latter observation, we have but to imagine, that some effect having been produced on the minds of these islanders by the sight of the animals in question, similar to what they had previously experienced from some bird or birds which they had occasionally seen, led them to the remarkable association we have been considering.  It would not be very difficult to intimate how this might have happened, but the length of our note, the reader may think, is much greater than its importance, and he may prefer to amuse himself at another time, by following out the investigation.  Let it be our apology for entering on it at all, that it is only by diligent reflection on such mysterious trains of thought, we can hope to acquire any just conceptions of the faculties and operations of our own minds.—­E.]