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A DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
P. SLUD
A
DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
BY
ALFRED NEWTON
ASSISTED BY
HANS GADOW
WITH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM
RICHARD LYDEKKER CHARLES 8. ROY
B.A., F.R.S,. M.A., F.R.S.
AND
ROBERT W. SHUFELDT, M.D.
LATE UNITED STATES’ ARMY
LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK
1896
Faul Sad
FRATRI EDUARDO CARISSIMO PER ANNOS PLUS QUAM QUINQUAGINTA IN STUDIIS ORNITHOLOGICIS DOMI PEREGRE SUB DIO IN ANTRIS DILIGENTISSIMO CONDISCIPULO HOC OPUS D.D.
AUCTOR
DIZ X. NOVEMBRIS MDCCCXCVI.
PREFACE
Tis Dictionary has taken me far longer to complete than, when I began it, I had any notion that it would. Yet I do not regret the delay, since it has enabled me, though very briefly, to shew (INTRODUCTION, page 108, note) that the latest investi- gation has proved the newly-announced group STEREORNITHES, which seemed at first so important, to have no more claim to recognition than had that known as ODONTORNITHES.
The articles by Dr. Gapow have fully sustained the expectation of them expressed in my initial NoTr. Read with the aid of the cross-references they contain and the INDex that follows, they cannot fail to place the enquirer, be he beginner or advanced student, in a position he could not hope to occupy through the study of any other English book, and, what is better, a position whence he may extend his researches in many directions.
It has been my object throughout to compress into the smallest compass the information intended to be conveyed. It would have been easier to double the bulk of the work, but the limits of a single volume are already strained, and to extend it to a second would in several ways destroy such usefulness as it may possess. Still I cannot but regret having to omit any special notice of several interesting subjects which bear more or less directly upon Ornithology. To name only a
few of them—Insulation, Isomorphism, Reversion and _ the
vile PRETEA GLEE
Struggle for Existence, as illustrated by Birds, were tempting themes for treatment, while Nomenclature, which owing to its contentious nature I have studied to avoid, and Protection, about which so much deplorable and mischievous misunder- standing exists, might well be said to demand consideration. It will be obvious to nearly every one that the number of names of Birds included in a work of this kind might be increased almost indefinitely. | Whether it will ever be pos- sible for me to supply these additions, and others, must depend on many things, and not least on the reception accorded by
the public to the present volume. A: _N;
MAGDALENE COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, November, 1896,
NOTANDA ET CORRIGENDA
Page 9, line 10, for Molly-mauk read Mollymawk.
’
Ve)
» 23. ALECTORIDES, proposed as a Family of Grallatores by Iliger in 1811, is the same group as Temminck’s of 1820, with the addition of Cereopsis; but neither has anything in common with the Alectrides of Duméril in 1806.
Insert ALECTOROPODES, Huxley, P.Z.S. 1868, pp. 296, 299, and see
PERISTEROPODES, page 707. 11, line 28. Amadavats (Anadavadewa, or Anadavad, corrected in Index to Amadavad) had been brought from India to England by 1673 (Willughby, Orn. p. 194, Engl. p. 266). 14, ,, 11, for cases read causes. 21, ,, 989, for Hargita read Hargila. 30, after BEEF-EATER insert Pennant, Gen. B. p. 9 (1778). 34, line 28, for Lurinorhynchus read Hurynorhynchus. 38, ,, 4, dele his father. 45, 5, 27, after wintering in insert Egypt. 58, ,, 1, for OLIcomyoDI read OLIGOMYOD. 78, 4, 25, after printed as insert ‘‘Cassawarway,” Coryat, Crudities, Pref. Verses, 1611 (NV. #. Dict. ii. p. 152), and then. 101, note 2, for LAMMERGEIER read LAMMERGEYER. 102, line 14, for back read beak. 104, ,, 37, for DEsMoGNaTHOUS read ANGITHOGNATHOUS. 105, ,, 1, after patois—dele the comma. 108, ,, 41, after known by insert Albin (VV. H. Birds, ii. pl. 53, fig. 2), and subsequently by. 118, ,, 7, after p. 176) insert and also to the Crowned - CRANE ; (Balearica). 130, ,, 26, after authors insert as Pennant in 1773 (Gen. B. p. 13). 130, add CUT-THROAT, see WEAVER-BIRD. 136, ,, 20, for MourH read mouth. 139. To explanation of Fig. 1 add—L. follicle at base of villus. 159, line 15, for sixteen read fifteen. 159, ,, 17, dele De. 162, lines 18-21. obivanellus and some other forms have the structure said to be peculiar to the Dotterel alone. 165, line 3, for Mussulmans and Christiaus read Christians and Mussul- mans. 166, ,, last. Drepanis pacifica, though nearly extinct, proves not to have been so when this sentence was written. A second species, D,
b
x
DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
eS Eee eS Ee ee
funerea, has since been described from Maui (P.Z.S. 1893, p. 690).
Page 179, line 9 from bottom, for foramen ovale read fenestra ovalis. fo)
189, ,, 82, for ark-line read ark-like.
214, ,, 10, for 70 to 80 read 57.
214, lines 21-23. The statement needs correction, as the RHEA also swims rivers.
215, line 2, after ERNE insert A.-S. Harn.
218, ,, 6, for Miserythrus read Erythromachus. (See page 764, note 1.)
221, ,, 80, after In insert 1809 Tucker (Orn. Danmon. p. lix.), and in.
222, ,, 8. Examples are now known to have been killed later than 1852, see Auk, 1894, pp. 4-12.
223, ,, 9, for thirty-eight read forty-two or forty-three.
229, ,, 438. The iris in Harelda is said to be straw-colour in winter, dark hazel in summer. KE. A.S. Elliot, Budl. B. O. Club, 20 May 1896.
235, note 1. Falco, as a man’s name, was in earlier use. Q. Sosius Falco was a Roman Consul circa A.D. 1933 see Capitolinus in Hist. August. Script. Vi. “ Pertinax”’ (Lugd. Bat.: 1671, p. 558).
238, line 28, for Luggur read Luggar.
255, ,, 20. The statement as to nidification of Phanicopterus was con- firmed by D’Orbigny, fide I. Geoffroy St.-Hilaire.
261, ., 20, for 45 per cent read = and line 21 for 16 per vent read from — to —
269. Fig. 8 is accidentally inverted (¢/. Marey, Vol des Ois. p. 140).
277, line 28, for about read in or before.
277, 4, 30, after and insert Dexter, and dele Subsequently.
277 +, 34, and note 2, Many other remains from this deposit have been described by Prof. Marsh, Am. Journ. Sc. (3) xxxvii. p. 331; xlii. p. 267 ; xliii. p. 543; and xlv. p. 169.
278, ,, 5, for discovered read made known.
279, ,, 4, for 20 read 12.
281, note 2, for Ameyhino read Ameghino.
284, line 41, for Haliwtus read Haliaetus.
289, ,, 26. The statement as to Gallus ferrugineus being found on the Raj-peepla hills is erroneous (¢f. Blanford, J. A.S.B. xxxvi. pt. 2, p. 199).
291, ,, 26, for 1869 read 1862.
293, ,, 31, for the elder Brandt read Illiger.
316, ,, 17, for Prosthemadura read Prosthemadera.
820, 5, 21, for Lophophanes real Lophophaps.
023, ,, 8, for OLIGOMYODI read OLIGOMYODA,
827, ,, 6, for Prionoteles read Prionotelus.
338, note 5, for Meado-Walde, read Meade-Waldo.
349, line 4, after Rhynchwa add , Rhynchops.
370, ,, 10, for American read Canadian.
371. Insert GOONEY (prov. Engl. for a stupid or awkward person), a sailors’ name for an ALBATROS.
376, line 44, for Nettapus read Nettopus,
NOTANDA ET CORRIGENDA xe
Page 396, note 2. Mr. O. Grant (Cat. B. Br. Mus. xxii. p. 498) makes the Guan
of Edwards to be Penelope cristuta.
406, lines 13 e¢ segg. On the anatomy and affinities of Scopus, cf. Beddard, P.Z.S. 1884, p. 543.
415. HEATHER-BLEAT, a corruption of the A.-S. Hefer-blete, or Goat- like bleater (jide Skeat).
428, line last, for SOLDIER-BIRD read BLOOD-BIRD.
429, ,, 12 and beneath figure, for Melithreptes read Melithreptus.
434, ,, 38, after habits insert except what Herr Hartert has told us (J.f.0. 1889, pp. 366-368).
456, lines 1-8, for S. read J.
456, line 21, after known insert , except Comatibis.
458, ,, 37, dele and best-.
459, ,, 29, after Ambulatores insert and Scansores.
465, lines 20, 21, transfer the latter from line 21 to line 20 after and, insert- ing also after those words.
482, line 4, for hiaticula read hiaticola.
487, ,, 27, for SyNDAcTYLISM read Syndactylism, cf. SYNDACTYLI.
496, note 2 (in early copies), after A. maxima insert (from Stewart Island), A, haasti.
513, ,, 2. The derivation of Liverpool is now said to be from the A.-S. lefer, a rush or flag (cf Britton and Holland, Dict. Engl. Plant Names, p. 304).
514, line 4, for Lepelaer read Lepelaar.
519, note 2, for Touracoo read TouRACco,
524, lines 26 e¢ segg. Further information on the subject is given by Mr. Ramsay, P.Z.S. 1868, pp. 49 e¢ seqq.
525, note. The ege of M. superba has been figured by Mr. North, Wests and Eggs of Australian Birds, pl. x.
536, line 11, for CurLEw or Gopwirt read Gopwir or to Numenius hud- sonicus (CURLEW).
536, ,, 16, for Turnbull read Trumbull.
553, lines 13, 14 of notes. The historic nesting-place of Parus cwruleus was reoccupied in 1895.
562, ,, 1-3. Mr. Clarke’s Digest of the observations will be found in Rep. Brit. Association (Liverpool Meeting), 1896.
563, ,, 7-9. Of. Peal, Rep. Aeronaut. Soc. 16, pp. 10-17 (1881), and Nature, xxiii. pp. 10, 11. Additional observations of Birds flying at great heights are recorded by Bray, op. cif. lii. p. 415, and West, op. cit. liii. p. 131.
600, line 18, for New Zealand read Western Australia. The Mountain- Duck of New Zealand is Hymenolemus (page 843).
616, lines 28-35. The preparation V, c, here described, and diagrammatic- ally figured on the opposite page, proved not to be taken from any of the Zrochilide. Cf. Lucas and Gadow, Jbis, 1895, pp. 298-300.
654, line 3, for Argusanus read Argusianus.
686, ,, 29, for Cyanorhynchus read Cyanorhamphus.
687, line 4. Parrots are not wanting in the Philippine Islands, as asserted, See Nature, li. p. 367.
xit
DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
we
Page, 692, note 1, for Tita read Tito.
bb)
”
698, line 8, for laryngeal read tracheal.
700, note 1.. In the Exhibition of Venetian Art at the New Gallery in Regent Street, 1894-5, No. 68 of the Catalogue was a picture, attributed to Vittorio Carpaccio, containing a representation of a “japanned” Peacock.
703, line 12, dele male’s.
703, note 2. The first of the three derivations assigned was the suggestion “by probability” of Selden in his ‘Illustrations’ of Drayton’s poem (p. 148). Being almost impossible, and unsupported by evidence, it is the derivation most popularly accepted.
711, line 11, and p. 716, last line of text, for Sayornis read Empidonaz.
732, lines 16-18. The statement as to old feathers changing their colour is probably erroneous (see Auk, 1896, pp. 148-150; Bull. Am. Mus. N. H. viii. pp. 1-44).
734, line 18 of notes, for Hurinorhynchus read Hurynorhynchus.
743, ,, 28, for 173, 177 read 272, 277.
744, ,, 8, for anterior read posterior.
754, ,, 4, after Dutch insert name for the PINTAIL.
789, note 2, for Acarthidositta read Acanthidositta.
814, line 6, for p. cxxxix. read pp. xi. cxxxix. pl. vii.
814, ,, 15. The term Ornithure is used by Fiirbringer, see INTRODUCTION, page 108.
820, ,, 11. Chauna derbiana is the true C. chavaria (Linn.), while the species commonly so called is C. cristata (cf. Salvadori, Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xxvii. pp. 4-7).
848, ,, 2, after the insert Mountain- or.
887, ,, 24, after for insert Myzantha garrula, M. flavigula and; for
; sanguinoleuta read sanguinolenta.
893, note 2. Local difference in Birds’ notes was noticed in 1809 by Tucker (Orn. Danmon. p. Ixxxiv.) }
896, ,, 1, after designation add ; but Mr. Barrows in his able work (Zhe Linglish Sparrow in North America. Washington: 1889) continues the misleading name.
905, line 384. Clearing away the matrix of the specimen has since shewp this septum (¢f. InrTRoDUCTION, page 108, note).
INTRODUCTION
ORNITHOLOGY in its proper sense is the methodical study and consequent knowledge of Birds with all that relates to them ; but the difficulty of assigning a limit to the commencement of such study and knowledge gives the word a very vague meaning, and practically procures its application to much that does not enter the domain of Science. This elastic applica- tion renders it impossible in any sketch of the history of Ornithology to draw a sharp distinction between works that are emphatically ornitho- logical and those to which that title can only be attached by courtesy ; for, since Birds have always attracted far greater attention than any other group of animals with which in number or in importance they can be compared, there has grown up concerning them a literature of corre- sponding magnitude and of the widest range, extending from the recondite and laborious investigations of the morphologist and anatomist to the casual observations of the sportsman or the schoolboy. The chief cause of the disproportionate amount of attention which Birds have received plainly arises from the way in which so many of them familiarly present themselves to us, or even (it may be said) force themselves upon our notice. Trusting to the freedom from danger conferred by the power of flight, most Birds have no need to lurk hidden in dens, or to slink from place to place under shelter of the inequalities of the ground or of the vegetation which clothes it, as is the case with so many other animals of similar size. Beside this, a great number of the Birds which thus display themselves freely to our gaze are conspicuous for the beauty of their plumage ; and there are very few that are not remarkable for the grace of their form. Some Birds again enchant us with their voice, and others administer to our luxuries and wants, while there is scarcely a species which has not idiosyncrasies that are found to be of engaging interest the more we know of them. Moreover, it is clear that the art of the fowler is one that must have been practised from the very earliest times, and to follow that art with success no inconsiderable amount of acquaintance with the haunts and habits of Birds is a necessity. Owing to one or another of these causes, or to the combination of more than one, it is not surprising that the observation of Birds has been from a very remote period a favourite pursuit among nearly all nations, and this observation has by degrees led to a study more or less framed on methodical principles, finally reaching the dignity of a science, and a study that has its votaries
2 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
nn —
in almost all classes of the population of every civilized country. In the ages during which intelligence dawned on the world’s ignorance, or before experience had accumulated, and even now in those districts that have not yet emerged from the twilight of a knowledge still more imperfect than is our own at present, an additional and perhaps a stronger reason for paying attention to the ways of Birds existed, or exists, in their association with the cherished beliefs handed down from generation to generation among many races of men, and not infrequently interwoven in their mythology.?
Moreover, though Birds make a not unimportant appearance in the earliest written records of the human race, the painter’s brush has preserved their counterfeit presentment for a still longer period. What is asserted—and that, so far as the writer is aware, without contradiction— by Egyptologists of the highest repute to be one of the oldest pictures in the world is a fragmentary fresco taken from a tomb at Maydoom, and happily deposited, though in a decaying condition, in the Museum at Boolak. This picture is said to date from the time of the third or fourth dynasty, some three thousand years before the Christian era. In it are depicted with a marvellous fidelity, and thorough appreciation of form and colouring (despite a certain conventional treatment), the figures of six Geese. Four of these figures can be unhesitatingly referred to two species (Anser erythropus and A. ruficollis) well known at the present day ; and if the two remaining figures, belonging to a third and larger species, were re-examined by an expert they would very possibly be capable of determination with no less certainty.2 In later ages the representations of Birds of one sort or another in Egyptian paintings and sculptures become countless, and the bassi-rilievt of Assyrian monuments, though mostly belonging of course to a subsequent period, are not without them ; but so rudely designed as to be generally unrecognizable.* No figures of Birds, however, seem yet to have been found on the incised stones, bones or ivories of the prehistoric races of Europe.
It is of course necessary to name Aristotle (B.c. 385-322) as the first serious author on Ornithology with whose writings we are acquainted, but even he had, as he tells us, predecessors ; and, looking to that portion of his works on animals which has come down to us, one finds that, though more than 170 sorts of Birds are mentioned,’ yet what is said of them amounts on the whole to very little, and this consists more of desultory
1 For instances of this among Greeks and Romans almost any work on “ Classical Antiquities” may be consulted, while as rezards the superstitions of barbarous nations the authorities are far too numerous to be here named.
~ A Jac-simile of the picture is, or was a few years ago, exhibited at the Museum of Science and Art in London, and the portion containing the figures of the Geese has been figured by Mr. Loftie (Ride in Egypt, p. 209). I owe to that gentleman’s kindness the opportunity of examining a copy made on the spot by an accomplished artist, as well as information that it is No. 988 of Mariette’s Catalogue.
* Cf. W. Houghton ‘On the Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records,’ Trans. Soc. Bibl. Archexol. viii. pp. 42-142, 13 pls. (1883). The author being buta poor ornithologist, his determination of the figures cannot be trusted. As to the linguistic value of his labours I am not competent to speak.
: This is Sundevall’s estimate ; Drs. Aubert and Wimmer in their excellent edition of the ‘Ioropiat rept swv (Leipzig: 1868) limit the number to 126,
INTRODUCTION 3 observations in illustration of his general remarks (which are to a con- siderable extent physiological or bearing on the subject of reproduction) than of an attempt at a connected account of Birds. Some of these observations are so meagre as to have given plenty of occupation to his many commentators, who with varying success have for more than three hundred years been endeavouring to determine what were the Birds of which he wrote ; and the admittedly corrupt state of the text adds to their difficulties. One of the most recent of these commentators, the late Prof. Sundevall—equally proficient in classical as in ornithological know- ledge—was, in 1863, compelled to leave more than a score of the Birds unrecognized. Yet it is not to be supposed that in what survives of the great philosopher’s writings we have more than a fragment of the know- ledge possessed by him, though the hope of recovering his Zwixd or his *Avatopukd, in which he seems to have given fuller descriptions of the animals he knew, can be hardly now entertained. A Latin translation by Gaza of Aristotle’s existing zoological work was printed at Venice in 1503. Another version, by Scaliger, was subsequently published. Two wretched English translations have appeared.
Next in order of date, though at a long interval, comes Gaius Plinius Secundus, commonly known as Pliny the Elder, who died a.p. 79, author of a general and very discursive Historia Naturalis in thirty-seven books, of which most of Book X. is devoted to Birds. A considerable portion of Pliny’s work may be traced to his great predecessor, of whose information he freely and avowedly availed himself, while the additions thereto made cannot be said to be, on the whole, improvements, Neither of these authors attempted to classify the Birds known to them beyond a very rough and for the most part obvious grouping. Aristotle seems to recognize eight principal groups:—(1) Gampsonyches, approximately equivalent to the Accipitres of Linnzeus ; (2) Scolecophaga, containing most of what would now be called Oscines, excepting indeed the (3) Acantho- phaga, composed of the Goldfinch, Siskin and a few othors; (4) Senipo- phaga, the Woodpeckers ; (5) Peristeroide, or Pigeons ; (6) Schizopoda, (7) Steganopoda and (8) Barea, nearly the same respectively as the Linnean Grallx, Anseres and Gallinz. Pliny, relying wholly on characters taken from the feet, limits himself to three groups—without assigning names to them—those which have “hooked tallons, as Hawkes; or round long clawes, as Hennes ; or else they:be broad, flat, and whole-footed, as Geese and all the sort in manner of water-foule ””—to use the words of Philemon Holland, who, in 1601, published a quaint and, though condensed, yet fairly faithful English translation of Pliny’s work.?
About a century later came ASlian, who died about a.p. 140, and compiled in Greek (though he was an Italian by birth) a number of miscellaneous observations on the peculiarities of animals. His work is a kind of commonplace book kept without scientific discrimination. A
1 By Thomas Taylor in 1809, and Cresswell in 1862.
2 The French translation by Ajasson de Grandsagne, with notes by Cuvier (Paris: 1830), is very good for the time. An English translation by Bostock and Riley appeared between 1855 and 1857. Sillig’s edition of the original text (Gotha: 1851- 1858) seems to be the best.
4 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
considerable number of Birds are mentioned, and something said of almost each of them ; but that something is too often nonsense—according to modern ideas—though occasionally a fact of interest may therein be found. It contains numerous references to former or contemporary writers whose works have perished, but there is nothing to shew that they were wiser than Atlian himself.
The twenty-six books De Animalibus of Albertus Magnus (Groot), who died a.p. 1282, were printed in 1478 ; but were apparently already well known from manuscript copies. They are founded on the works of Aristotle, many of whose statements are almost literally repeated, and often without acknowledgment. Occasionally Avicenna, or some other less-known author, is quoted ; but it is hardly too much to say that the additional information is almost worthless. The twenty-third of these books is De Avibus, and therein a great number of Birds’ names make their earliest appearance, few of which are without interest from a philo- logist’s if not an ornithologist’s point of view, but there is much difficulty in recognizing the species to which many of them apply. In 1485 was printed the first dated copy of the volume known as the Ortus Sanitatis, to the popularity of which many editions testify. Though said by its author, Johann Wonnecke von Caub (Latinized as Johannes de Cuba),! to have been composed from a study of the collections formed by a certain nobleman who had travelled in Eastern Europe, Western Asia and Egypt —possibly Breidenbach,? an account of whose travels in the Levant was printed at Mentz in 1486—it is really a medical treatise, and its zoological portion is mainly an abbreviation of the writings of Albertus Magnus, with a few interpolations from Isidorus of Seville (who flourished in the beginning of the seventh century, and was the author of many books highly esteemed in the Middle Ages), and a work known as Physiologus.? The third tractatus of this volume deals with Birds—including among them Bats, Bees and other flying creatures; but as it is the first printed book in which figures of Birds are introduced it merits notice, though most of the illustrations, which are rude woodcuts, fail, even in the coloured copies, to give any precise indication of the species intended to be represented. The scientific degeneracy of this work is manifested as much by its title (Ortus for Hortus) as by the mode in which the several subjects are treated ;* but the revival of learning was at hand, and
1 On this point see G. A. Pritzel, Botan. Zeitung, 1846, pp. 785-790, and Thes. Literat. Botanice (Lipsie: 1851), pp. 849-352.
2 T owe this suggestion to my late good friend, the eminent bibliographer, Henry Bradshaw.
3 See the excellent account of this curious work by Prof. Land of Leyden (Zncycl. Brit. ed. 9, xix. pp. 6, 7).
4 Absurd as much that we find both in Albertus Magnus and the Ovtws seems to modern eyes, if we go a step lower in the scale and consult the “ Bestiaries”’ or treatises on animals which were common from the twelfth to the fourteenth century we shall meet with many more absurdities. See for instance that by Philippe de Thaun (Philippus Taonensis), dedicated to Adelaide or Alice, queen of Henry I. of England, and probably written soon after 1121, as printed by the late Mr. Thomas Wright, in his Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages (London : 1841). Perhaps the De Naturis Rerum libri duo of Alexander Neckam (0b. 1217), the foster-brother of Richard Coeur de Lion, may be excepted, for therein (lib. 1
INTRODUCTION is
William Turner, a Northumbrian, while residing abroad to avoid persecu- tion at home, printed at Cologne in 1544 the first commentary on the Birds mentioned by Aristotle and Pliny conceived in anything like the spirit that moves modern naturalists! In the same year and from the same press was issued a Dialogus de Avibus by Gybertus Longolius, and in 1570 Caius brought out in London his treatise De rariorwm animalium atque stirprum historia. In this last work, small though it be, ornithology has a good share ; and all three may still be consulted with interest and advantage by its votaries.2 Meanwhile the study received a great impulse from the appearance, at Zurich in 1555, of the third book of the illustrious Conrad Gesner’s Historia Animalium “qviest de Auium natura,” and at Paris in the same year of Pierre Belon’s (Bellonius) Histoire de la nature des Oyseaux. Gesner brought anamount of erudition, hitherto unequalled, to bear upon his subject ; and, making due allowance for the time in which he wrote, his judgment must in most respects be deemed excellent. In his work, however, there is little that can be called systematic treat- ment. Like nearly all his predecessors since Adlian, he adopted an alphabetical arrangement,® though this was not too pedantically preserved, and did not hinder him from placing together the kinds of Birds which he supposed (and generally supposed rightly) to have the most resemblance to that one whose name, being best known, was chosen for the headpiece (as it were) of his particular theme, thus recognizing to some extent the principle of classification. Belon, with perhaps less book-learning than his contemporary, was evidently no mean scholar, and undoubtedly had more practical knowledge of Birds—their internal as well as external structure. Hence his work contains a far greater amount of original matter; and his personal observations made in many countries, from England to Egypt, enabled him to avoid most of the puerilities which disfigure other works of his own or of a preceding age. Leside this, Belon disposed the Birds known to him according to a definite system, which (rude as we now know it to be) formed a foundation on which several of his successors were content to build, and even to this day traces of its influence may still be discerned in the arrangement followed by writers who have faintly appreciated the principles on which modern taxonomers rest the outline of their schemes. Both his work and that of Gesner were
capp. xxiii.-lxxx.) is a good deal about birds which is not altogether nonsense. This work was edited for the Rolls Series, in 1863, by the same Mr. Wright.
1 This was reprinted at Cambridge in 1823 by the late Dr. George Thackeray.
2 The Seventh of Wotton’s De differentiis animalium Libri Decem,, published at Paris in 1552, treats of Birds; but his work is merely a compilation from Aristotle and Pliny, with references to other classical writers who have more or less incidentally mentioned Birds and other animals. The author in his preface states—‘ Veterum scriptorum sententias in unum quasi cumulum coaceruaui, de meo nihil addidi.” Nevertheless he makes some attempt at a systematic arrangement of Birds, which, according to his lights, is far from despicable.
® Even at the present day it may be shrewdly suspected that not a few orni- thologists would gladly follow Gesner’s plan in their despair of seeing, in their own time, a classification which would really deserve the epithet scientific.
4 For instance, under the title of “ Accipiter ” we have to look, not only for the Sparrow-Hawk and Gos-Hawk, but for many other birds of the Family (as we now call it) removed comparatively far from those species by modern ornithologists.
6 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
illustrated with woodcuts, many of which display much spirit and regard to accuracy.
Belon, as has just been said, had a knowledge of the anatomy of Birds, and he seems to have been the first to institute a direct comparison of their skeleton with that of Man ; but in this respect he only anticipated by a few years the more precise researches of Volcher Coiter, a Frisian, who in 1573 and 1575 published at Nuremberg two treatises, in one of which the internal structure of Birds in general is very creditably de- scribed, while in the other the osteology and myology of certain forms is given in considerable detail, and illustrated by carefully-drawn figures. The first is entitled Hxternarum et internarum principaliwm humani corporis Tabule, &c., while the second, which is the most valuable, is merely appended to the Lectiones Gabrielis Fallopii de partibus similartbus humans corporis, &c., and thus, the scope of each work being regarded as medical, the author’s labours were wholly overlooked by the mere natural-historians who followed, though Coiter introduced a table, “‘ De differentits Autum,” furnishing a key to a rough classification of such Birds as were known to him, and this, as nearly the first attempt of the kind, deserves notice here.
Contemporary with these three men was Ulysses Aldrovandus, a Bolognese, who wrote an Historia Natwraliwm in sixteen folio volumes, most of which were not printed till after his death in 1605 ; but the three on Birds appeared between 1599 and 1603. The work is almost wholly a compilation, and that not of the most discriminative kind, while a peculiar jealousy of Gesner is displayed throughout, though his statements are very constantly quoted—nearly always as those of ‘“ Ornithologus,” his name appearing but few times in the text, and not at all in the list of authors cited. With certain modifications in principle not very important, but characterized by much more elaborate detail, Aldrovandus adopted Belon’s method of arrangement, but in a few respects there is a manifest retrogression. The work of Aldrovandus was illustrated by copper plates, but none of his figures approach those of his immediate predecessors in character or accuracy. Nevertheless the book was eagerly sought, and several editions of it appeared.
Mention must be made of a medical treatise by Caspar Schwenckfeld, published at Liegnitz in 1603, under the title of Theriotrophewm Stlesiz, the fourth book of which consists of an “ Aviarium Silesie,” and is the earliest of the ornithological works we now know by the name.of Fauna, The author was acquainted with the labours of his predecessors, as his list of over one hundred of them testifies. Most of the Birds he describes are characterized with accuracy sufficient to enable them to be identified, and his observations upon them have still some interest; but he was innocent of any methodical system, and was not exempt from most of the professional fallacies of his time.?
1 The Historia Naturalis of John Johnstone or Jonston, of Scottish descent but by birth a Pole (Dict. Nat. Biogr. xxx. pp. 80, 81), ran through several editions during the seventeenth century, but is little more than an epitome of the work of Aldrovandus.
* The Hierozoicon of Bochart—a treatise on the animals named in Holy Writ—was published in 1619.
INTRODUCTION 7
Hitherto, from the nature of the case, the works aforesaid treated of scarcely any but the Birds belonging to the orbis veteribus notus ; but the geographical discoveries of the sixteenth century began to bear fruit, and many animals of kinds unsuspected were, about one hundred years later, made known. Here there is only space to name Bontius, Clusius, Hernandez! (or Fernandez), Marcgrave, Nieremberg and Piso,? whose several works describing the natural products of both the Indies—whether the result of their own observation or compilation—together with those of Olina and Worm, produced a marked effect, since they led up to what may be deemed the foundation of scientific Ornithology.’
This foundation was laid by the joint labours of Francis Willughby (born 1635, died 1672) and John Ray (born 1628, died 1705), for it is impossible to separate their share of work in Natural History more than to say that, while the former more especially devoted himself to zoology, botany was the favourite pursuit of the latter. Together they studied, together they travelled and together they collected. Willughby, the younger of the two, and at first the other’s pupil, seems to have gradually become the master ; but dying before the promise of his life was fulfilled, his writings were given to the world by his friend Ray, who, adding to them from his own stores, published the Ornithologia in Latin in 1676, and in English with many emendations in 1678. In this work Birds generally were grouped in two great divisions— Land-Fowl” and “ Water-Fow],”—the former being subdivided into those which have a crooked beak and talons and those which have a straighter bill and claws, while the latter was separated into those which frequent waters and watery places and those that swim in the water—each subdivision being further broken up into many sections, to the whole of which a key was given. Thus it became possible for almost any diligent reader without much chance of error to refer to its proper place nearly every bird he was likely to meet with. Ray’s interest in ornithology con- tinued, and in 1694 he completed a Synopsis Methodica Aviwm, which, through the fault of the booksellers to whom it was entrusted, was not published till 1713, when Derham gave it to the world.4
Two years after Ray’s death, Linnzus, the great reformer of Natural History, was born, and in 1735 appeared the first edition of the celebrated Systema Nature. Successive editions of this work were produced under
1 The earliest work of Hernandez, published at Mexico in 1615, copies of which are very scarce, has been reprinted and edited by Dr. Ledén (8vo, Morelia: 1888).
2 For Lichtenstein’s determination of the Birds described by Marcgrave and Piso see the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy for 1817 (pp. 155 et seqq.)
3 The earliest list of British Birds seems to be that in the Pinax Rerum Naturalium of Christopher Merrett, published in 1666, and to be again mentioned presently. In 1668 appeared the Onomasticon Zooicon of Walter Charleton, which contains some information on ornithology. An enlarged edition of the latter, under the title of Exercitationes, &c., was published in 1677 ; but neither of these writers is of much authority. In 1684 Sibbald in his Scotia illustrata published the earliest Fauna of Scotland.
4 To this was added a supplement by Petiver on the Birds of Madras, taken from pictures and information sent him by one Edward Buckley of Fort St. George, being the first attempt to catalogue the Birds of any part of the British possessions in India.
S DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
its author’s supervision in 1740, 1748, 1758 and 1766. Impressed by the belief that verbosity was the bane of science, he carried terseness to an extreme which frequently created obscurity, and this in no branch of zoology more than in that which relates to Birds, Still the practice introduced by him of assigning to each species a diagnosis by which it ought in theory to be distinguishable from any other known species, and of naming it by two words—the first being the generic and the second the specific term, was so manifest an improvement upon anything which had previously obtained, that the Linnean method of differentiation and nomenclature established itself before long in spite of all opposition, and in principle became almost universally adopted. The opposition came of course from those who were habituated to the older state of things, and saw no evil in the cumbrous, half-descriptive half-designative titles which had to be employed whenever a species was to be spoken of or written about. The supporters of the new method were the rising generation of naturalists, many of whose names have since become famous, but among them were some whose admiration of their chief carried them to a pitch of enthusiasm which now seems absurd. Careful as Linneus was in drawing up his definitions of groups, it was immediately seen that they occasionally comprehended creatures whose characteristics contradicted the prescribed diagnosis, His chief glory lies in his having reduced, at least for a time, a chaos into order, and in his shewing both by precept and practice that a name was not a definition. In his classification of Birds he for the most part followed Ray, and where he departed from his model he seldom improved upon it.
In 1745 Barrere brought out at Perpignan a little book called Ornithologie Specimen nouwm, and in 1752 Méhring published at Aurich one still smaller, his Aviwm Genera. Both these works (now rare) are manifestly framed on the Linnean method, so far as it had then reached ; but in their arrangement of the various forms of Birds they differed greatly from that which they designed to supplant, and they obtained little success. Yet as systematists their authors were no worse than Klein, whose Historiw Aviwm Prodromus, appearing at Liibeck in 1750, and Stemmata Aviwm at Leipzig in 1759, met with considerable favour in some quarters. The chief merit of the latter work lies in its forty plates, whereon the heads and feet of many Birds are indifferently figured.?
But, while the successive editions of Linnewus’s great work were revolutionizing Natural History, and his example of precision in language was producing excellent effect on scientific writers, several other authors were advancing the study of Ornithology in a very different way—a way that pleased the eye even more than his labours were pleasing the mind. Between 1731 and 1743 Mark Catesby brought out in London his
1 Such an one was Rafinesque, in many respects a fantastic author, Simple as the principle of binomial nomenclature looks, its practice is not so easy, and there have not been wanting of late years quasi-scientific writers to mistake it wholly.
? After Klein’s death his Prodromus, written in Latin, had the unwonted fortune ‘of two distinct translations into German, published in the same year, 1760, the one
at Leipzig and Liibeck by Behn, the other at Danzig by Reyger—each of whom added more or less to the original.
INTRODUCTION 9
Natural History of Carolina—two large folios containing highly-coloured plates of the Birds of that colony, Florida and the Bahamas—the fore- runners of those numerous costly tomes which will have to be mentioned presently at greater length. Eleazar Albin between 1738 and 1740 produced a Natural History of Birds in three volumes of more modest dimensions, seeing that it is in quarto; but he seems to have been ignorant of Ornithology, and his coloured plates are greatly inferior to Catesby’s. Far better both as draughtsman and as authority was George Edwards, who in 1748 began, under almost the same title as Albin, a series of plates with letterpress, which was continued by the name of Gleanings of Natural History, and finished in 1760, when it had reached seven parts, forming four quarto volumes, the figures of which are nearly always quoted with approval.?
The year which saw the works of Edwards completed was still further distinguished by the appearance in France, where little had been done since Belon’s days,® in six quarto volumes, of the Ornithologie of Mathurin Jacques Brisson—a work of very great merit so far as it goes, for as a descriptive ornithologist the author stands even now unsurpassed ;_ but it must be said that his knowledge, according to internal evidence, was con- fined to books and to the external parts of Birds’ skins. It was enough for him to give a scrupulously exact description of such specimens as came under his eye, distinguishing these by prefixing two asterisks to their name, using a single asterisk where he had only seen a part of the Bird, and leaving unmarked those that he described from other authors. He also added information as to the Museum (generally Réaumut’s, of which he had been in charge) containing the specimen he described, act- ing on a principle which would have been advantageously adopted by many of his contemporaries and successors. His attempt at classification was cerfainly better than that of Linneus; and it is rather curious that the researches of the latest ornithologists point to results in some degree comparable with Brisson’s systematic arrangement, for they refuse to keep the Birds-of-Prey at the head of the Class Aves, and they require the establishment of a much larger number of “‘ Orders” than for a long while had been thought advisable. Of such “Orders” Brisson had twenty-six, and he gave Pigeons and Poultry precedence of the Birds which are carnivorous or scavengers. But greater value lies in his generic or sub- generic divisions, which taken as a whole, are far more natural than those of Linnzus, and consequently capable of better diagnosis. More than this, he seems to be the earliest ornithologist, perhaps the earliest zoologist, to conceive the idea of each genus possessing what is now called a “type” —though such a term does not occur in his work ; and, in like manner, without declaring it in so many words, he indicated unmistakably the existence of subgenera—all this being effected by the skilful use of names.
1 Several Birds from Jamaica were figured in Sloane’s Voyage, &c. (1705-1725), and a good many exotic species in the Thesaurus, &c. of Seba (1734-1765), but * from their faulty execution these plates had little effect upon Ornithology.
2 The works of Catesby and Edwards were afterwards reproduced at Nuremberg and Amsterdam by Seligmann, with the letterpress in German, French and Dutch.
3 Birds were treated of in a worthless fashion by one D. B. in a Dictionnaire raisonné et wniversel des animaux, published at Paris in 1759.
Z0 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
Unfortunately he was too soon in the field to avail himself, even had he been so minded, of the convenient mode of nomenclature brought into use by Linneus, and it is only in the last two volumes of Brisson’s Ornithologie that any reference is made to the tenth edition of the Systema Nature, in which the binomial method was introduced. It is certain that the first four volumes were written if not printed before that method was promulgated, and when the fame of Linnzus as a zoologist rested on little more than the very meagre sixth edition of the Systema Nature and the first edition of his Fawna Suecica. Brisson has been charged with jealousy of, if not hostility to, the great Swede, and it is true that in the preface to his Ornithologie he complains of the insufficiency of the Linnean characters, but, when one considers his much better acquaintance with Birds, such criticism must be allowed to be pardonable if not wholly just. This work was in French, with a parallel translation in Latin, which last (edited, it is said, by Pallas) was reprinted separately at Leyden three years afterwards.
In 1767 there was issued at Paris a book entitled L’histoire naturelle eclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, VOrnithologie. This was the work of Salerne, published after his death, and is often spoken of as being a mere translation of Ray’s Synopsis, but is thereby very inadequately described, for, though it is confessedly founded on that little book, a vast amount of fresh matter, and mostly of good quality, is added.
The success of Edwards’s work seems to have provoked competition, and in 1765, at the instigation of Buffon, the younger D’Aubenton began the publication known as the Planches Enluminéez Whistoire naturelle, which appearing in forty-two parts was not completed till 1780, when the plates} it contained reached the number of 1008—all coloured, as its title intimates, and nearly all representing Birds. This enormous work was subsidized by the French Government ; and, though the figures are devoid of artistic merit, they display the species they are intended to depict with sufficient approach to fidelity to ensure recognition in most cases without fear of error, which in the absence of any text is no small praise.?
But Buffon was not content with merely causing to be published this unparalleled set of plates. He seems to have regarded the work just named as a necessary precursor to his own labours in Ornithology. His Histoire Naturelle, générale et particuliere, was begun in 1749, and in 1770 he brought out, with the assistance of Guénau de Montbeillard,® the first volume of that grand undertaking relating to Birds, which, for the first time, became the theme of one who possessed real literary capacity. It
* They were drawn and engraved by Martinet, who himself began in 1787 a Histoire des Oiseaux with small coloured plates which have some merit, but the text is worthless. The work seems not to have been finished, and is rare. For the opportunity of seeing a copy I was indebted to my kind friend the late Mr. Gurney.
? Between 1767 and 1776 there appeared at Florence a Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, in five folio volumes, containing a number of ill-drawn and ill-coloured figures from the collection of Giovanni Gerini, an ardent collector who, having died in 1751, must be acquitted of any share in the work, which, though sometimes attributed to -
him, is that of certain learned men who did not happen to be ornitholegists (¢f. Savi, Ornithologia Toscana, i. Introduzione, Dp. .Va)s
° He retired on the completion of the sixth volume, and thereupon Buffon associated Bexon with himself
INTRODUCTION II
is not too much to say that Buffon’s florid fancy revelled in such a subject as was that on which he now exercised his brilliant pen; but it would be unjust to examine too closely what to many of his contemporaries seemed sound philosophical reasoning under the light that has since burst upon us. Strictly orthodox though he professed to be, there were those, both among his own countrymen and foreigners, who could not read his speculative indictments of the workings of Nature without a shudder ; and it is easy for any one in these days to frame a reply, pointed with ridicule, to such a chapter as he wrote on the wretched fate of the Wood- pecker. In the nine volumes devoted to the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux there are passages which will for ever live in the memory of those that carefully read them, however much occasional expressions, or even the general tone of the author, may grate upon their feelings. He too was the first man who formed any theory that may be called reasonable of the Geographical Distribution of Animals, though this theory was scarcely touched in the ornithological portion of his work, and has since proved to be not in accordance with facts. He proclaimed the variability of species in opposition to the views of Linnzus as to their fixity, and moreover supposed that this variability arose in part by degradation.! Taking his labours as a whole, there cannot be a doubt that he enormously enlarged the purview of naturalists, and, even if limited to Birds, that, on the completion of his work upon them in 1783, Ornithology stood in a very different position from that which it had before occupied. Because he opposed the system of Linnzus he has been said to be opposed to systems in general; but that is scarcely correct, for he had a system of his own ; and, as we now see it, it appears neither much better nor much worse than the systems which had been hitherto invented, or perhaps than any which was propounded for many years to come. It is certain that he despised any kind of scientific phraseology—a crime in the eyes of those who consider precise nomenclature to be the end of science ; but those who deem it merely a means whereby knowledge can be securely stored will take a different view—and have done so.
Great as were the services of Buffon to Ornithology in one direction, those of a wholly different kind rendered by our countryman John Latham must not be overlooked. In 1781 he began a work the practical utility of which was immediately recognized. This was his General Synopsis of Birds, and, though formed generally on the model of Linnzus greatly diverged in some respects therefrom. The classification was modified, chiefly on the older lines of Willughby and Ray, and certainly for the better ; but no scientific nomenclature was adopted, which, as the author subsequently found, was a change for the worse. His scope was co-extensive with that of Brisson, but Latham did not possess the inborn faculty of picking out the characters wherein one species differs from another. ° His opportunities of becoming acquainted with Birds were hardly inferior to Brisson’s, for during Latham’s long lifetime there poured in upon him countless new discoveries from all parts of the world, but especially from the newly-explored shores of Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean.
1 See Prof. Mivart’s address to the Section of Biology, Rep. Brit, Association (Sheffield Meeting), 1879, p. 356.
12 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
The British Museum had been formed, and he had access to everything it contained in addition to the abundant materials afforded him by the private Museum of Sir Ashton Lever! Latham entered, so far as the limits of his work would allow, into the history of the Birds he described, and this with evident zest, whereby he differed from his French pre- decessor ; but the number of cases in which he erred as to the determina- tion of his species must be very great, and not unfrequently the same species is described more than once. His Synopsis was finished in 1785 ; two supplements were added in 1787 and 1802,? and in 1790 he pro- duced a Latin abstract of the work under the title of Index Ornithologicus, wherein he assigned names on the Linnean method to all the species described. Not to recur again to his labours, it may be said here that between 1821 and 1828 he published at Winchester, in eleven volumes, an enlarged edition of his original work, entitling it A General History of Birds ; but his defects as a compiler, which had been manifest before, rather increased with age, and the consequences were not happy.®
About the time that Buffon was bringing to an end his studies of Birds, Mauduyt undertook to write the Ornithologie of the Encyclopédie Méthodique—a comparatively easy task, considering the recent works of his fellow-countrymen on that subject, and finished in 1784. Here it requires no further comment, especially as a new edition was called for in 1790, the ornithological portion of which was begun by Bonnaterre, who, however, had only finished 320 pages of it when he lost his life in the French Revolution ; and the work thus arrested was continued by Vieillot under the slightly changed title of Tableau encyclopédique et méthodique des trois regnes de la Nature—the Ornithologie forming volumes four to seven, and not completed till 1823. In the former edition Mauduyt had taken the subjects alphabetically ; but here they are disposed according to an arrangement, with some few modifications, furnished by D’Aubenton, which is extremely shallow and unworthy of consideration.
Several other works bearing upon Ornithology in general, but of less importance than most of those just named, belong to this period. Among others may be mentioned the Genera of Birds by Thomas Pennant, first printed at Edinburgh in 1773 in octavo, and very rare, but well known by the quarto edition which appeared in London in 1781; the Hlementa Ornithologica* and Musewm Ornithologicum of Schiffer, published at Ratis- bon in 1774 and 1784 respectively ; Peter Brown’s New Illustrations of Zoology in London in 1776; Hermann’s Tabule Affinitatum Animalium at Strasburg in 1783, followed posthumously in 1804 by his Observationes
1 In 1792 Shaw began the Musewm Leverianum in illustration of this collection, which was finally dispersed by sale in 1806, and what is known to remain of it found its way either to the collection of the then Lord Stanley (afterwards 13th Earl of Derby), and was, at his death in 1851, bequeathed to the Liverpool Museum, or to Vienna (Zbis, 1873, pp. 14-54, 105-124; 1874, p. 461). Of the specimens in the British Museum described by Latham not one exists. They were probably very im- perfectly prepared,
* A German translation by Bechstein subsequently appeared.
es He also prepared for publication a second edition of his Index Ornithologicus, which was never printed, and the manuscript is now in my possession.
* The so-called second edition (1779) of this has only a new title-page,
INTRODUCTION I3
Zoologice ; Jacquin’s Beytracge zur Geschichte der Voegel at Vienna in 1784, and in 1790 at the same place the larger work of Spalowsky with nearly the same title; Sparrman’s Musewm Carlsonianum at Stockholm from 1786 to 1789; and in 1794 Hayes’s Portraits of rare and curious Birds from the menagery of Child the banker at Osterley near London. The same draughtsman (who had in 1775 produced a bad History of British Birds) in 1822 began another series of Wigures of rare and curious Birds}
The practice of Brisson, Buffon, Latham and others of not giving names after the Linnzean fashion to the species they described gave great encouragement to compilation, and led to what has proved to be of some inconvenience to modern ornithologists. In 1773 Philip Ludvig Statius Miller brought out at Nuremberg a German translation of the Systema Nature, completing it in 1776 by a Supplement containing a list of animals thus described, which had hitherto been technically anonymous, with diagnoses and names on the Linnean model. In 1783 Boddaert printed at Utrecht a Table des Planches Enluminéz,? in which he attempted to refer every species of Bird figured in that extensive series to its proper Linnean genus, and to assign it a scientific name if it did not already possess one. In like manner in 1786, Scopoli—already the author of a little book published at Leipzig in 1769 under the title of Annus I. Historico-naturalis, in which are described many Birds, mostly from his own collection or the Imperial vivarium at Vienna—was at the pains to print at Pavia in his miscellaneous Delicie Flore et Faune Insubrice a Specimen Zoologicum® containing diagnoses, duly named, of the Birds discovered and described by Sonnerat in his Voyage aux Indes orientales and Voyage a la Nouvelle Guinée, severally published at Paris in 1772 and 1776. But the most striking example of compilation was that exhibited by J. F. Gmelin, who in 1788 commenced what he called the Thirteenth Edition of the celebrated Systema Nature, which obtained so wide a circulation that, in the comparative rarity of the original, the additions of this editor have been very frequently quoted, even by expert naturalists, as though they were the work of the author himself. Gmelin availed himself of every publication he could, but he perhaps found his richest booty in the labours of Latham, neatly condensing his English descriptions into Latin diagnoses, and bestowing on them binomial names. Hence it is that Gmelin appears as the authority for so much of the nomenclature now in use. He took many liberties with the details of
1 The Naturalist’s Miscellany or Vivarium Naturale, in English and Latin, of Shaw and Nodder, the former being the author, the latter the draughtsman and engraver, was begun in 1789 and carried on till Shaw’s death, forming twenty-four volumes. It contains figures of more than 280 Birds, but very poorly executed. In 1814 a sequel, The Zoological Miscellany, was begun by Leach, Nodder continuing to do the plates. This was completed in 1817, and forms three volumes with 149 plates, 27 of which represent Birds.
2 Of this work only fifty copies were printed, and it is one of the rarest known to the ornithologist. Only two copies are believed to exist in England, one in the British Museum, the other in private hands. It was reprinted in 1874 by Mr. Tegetmeier.
% This was reprinted in 1882 by the Willughby Society.
G
T4 DICTIONARY OF (BIRDS
Linnzeus’s work, but left the classification, at least of the Birds, as it was —a few new genera excepted.t
During all this time little had been done in studying the internal structure of Birds since the works of Coiter already mentioned ;? but the foundations of the science of Embryology had been laid by the investiga- tions into the development of the chick by the great Harvey. Between 1666 and 1669 Perrault edited at Paris eight accounts of the dissection by Du Verney of as many species of Birds, which, translated into English, were published by the Royal Society in 1702, under the title of The Natural History of Animals. After the death of the two anatomists just named, another series of similar descriptions of eight other species was found among theif papers, and the whole were published in the Mémoztres of the French Academy of Sciences in 1733 and 1734. But in 1681 Gerard Blasius had brought out at Amsterdam an Anatome Animalium, containing the results of all the dissections of animals that he could find ; and the second part of this book, treating of Volatclia, makes a respectable show of ‘more than 120 closely-printed quarto pages, though nearly two- thirds is devoted to a treatise De Ovo et Pullo, containing among other things a reprint of Harvey’s researches, and the scientific rank of the whole book may be inferred from Bats being still classed with Birds. In 1720 Valentini published, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, his Amphitheatrum Zootomicum, in which again most of the existing accounts of the anatomy of Birds were reprinted. But these and many other contributions,? made until nearly the close of the eighteenth century, though highly meritorious, were unconnected as a whole, and it is plain that no conception of what it was in the power of Comparative Anatomy to set forth had occurred to the most diligent dissectors. This privilege was reserved for Georges Cuvier, who in 1798 published at Paris his Tableau élémentatre de Vhistoire naturelle des Animawx, and thus laid the foundation of a thorough and hitherto unknown mode of appreciating the value of the various groups of the Animal Kingdom. Yet his first attempt was a mere sketch.* Though he made a perceptible advance on the classification of Linnzus, at that time predominant, it is now easy to see in how many ways—want of sufficient material being no doubt one of the chief—Cuvier failed to produce a really natural arrangement. His principles, however, are those which must still guide taxonomers, notwithstanding that they have in so great a degree overthrown the entire scheme which he propounded. Cuvier’s arrangement of the Class Aves is now seen to be not very much
1 Daudin’s unfinished Zraité élémentaire et complet d’ Ornithologie appeared at Paris in 1800, and therefore is the last of these general works published in the eighteenth century.
? A succinct notice of the older works on Ornithotomy is given by Prof. Selenka in the introduction to that portion of Bronn’s Klassen und Ordnungen des Thierreichs relating to Birds (pp. 1-9) published in 1869; and Prof. Carus’s Geschichte der Zoologie, published in 1872, may also be usefully consulted for further information on this and other heads. 3
* The treatises of the two Bartholinis and Borrichius published at Copenhagen deserve mention if only to record the activity of Danish anatomists in those days.
* It had no effect on Lacépéde, who in the following year added a Tableau Méthodique containing a classification of Birds to his Discours d’ Ouverture (Mém. de U Institut, iii. pp. 454-468, 508-519).
INTRODUCTION 75
better than any which it superseded, though this view is gained by follow- ing the methods which Cuvier taught. In the work just mentioned few details are given; but even the more elaborate classification of Birds contained in his Legons @ Anatomie Comparee of 1805 is based wholly on external characters, such as had been used by nearly all his predecessors ; and the Regne Animal of 1817, when he was in his fullest vigour, afforded not the least evidence that he had ever dissected a couple even of Birds! with the object of determining their relative position in his system, which then, as before, depended wholly on the configuration of bills, wings and feet. But, though apparently without such a knowledge of the anatomy of Birds as would enable him to apply it to the formation of that natural system which he was fully aware had yet to be sought, he seems to have been an excellent judge of the characters afforded by the bill and limbs, and the use he made of them, coupled with the extraordinary reputation he acquired on other grounds, procured for his system the adhesion for many years of the majority of ornithologists. Regret must always ‘be felt by them that his great genius was never applied in earnest to their branch of study, especially when we consider that had it been so the perversion of energy in regard to the classification of Birds witnessed in England for nearly twenty years, and presently to be mentioned, would most likely have been prevented.?
Hitherto mention has chiefly been made of works on General Orni- thology, but it will be understood that these were largely aided by the enterprise of travellers, and as there were many of them who published their narratives in separate forms, their contributions have to be considered. Of those travellers, then, the first to be here especially named is Marsigli, the fifth volume of whose Danubius Pannonico-Mysicus is devoted to the Birds he met with in the valley of the Danube, and appeared at the Hague in 1725, followed by a French translation in 1744.3 Most of the many pupils whom [inneus sent to foreign countries submitted their discoveries to him, but the respective travels of Kalm, Hasselqvist and Osbeck in North America, the Levant and China were published separ- ately.t The incessant journeys of Pallas and his colleagues— Falk, Georgi, J. G. and 8. G. Gmelin, Giildenstiidt, Lepechin and others—in
1 So little regard did he pay to the Osteology of Birds that, according to De Blainville (Jour. de Phys. xcii. p. 187, note), the skeleton of a Fowl to which was attached the head of a Hornbill was for a long time exhibited in the Museum of - Comparative Anatomy at Paris! Yet, in order to determine the difference of struc- ture in their organs of voice, Cuvier, as he says in his Lecons (iv. p. 464), dissected - more than 150 species of Birds. Unfortunately for him, as will appear in the sequel, it seems not to have occurred to him to use any of the results he obtained as the basis of a classification.
2 Tt is unnecessary to enumerate the various editions of the Reyne Animal. Of the English translations, that edited by Griffiths and Pidgeon is the most complete. The ornithological portion of it, contained in three volumes, received many additions from John Edward Gray, and appeared i in 1829, but even at ‘that time must have been lamentably deficient.
3 Though much later in date, the Iter per Poseganam Sclavonie of Piller and Mitterpacher, published at Buda in 1783, may perhaps be here most conveniently mentioned.
4 The results of Forskal’ s travels in the Levant, published after his death by Niebuhr, require mention, though the ornithology they contain is but scant,
16 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
the exploration of the recently extended Russian empire supplied not only much material to the Commentarit and Acta of the Academy of St. Petersburg, but more that is to be found in their narratives—all of it being of the highest interest to students of Holarctic Ornithology. Nearly the whole of their results, it may here be said, were summed up in the important Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica of the first-named naturalist, two volumes of which saw the light in 1811,—the year of its author’s death,—but, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, were not generally accessible till twenty years later. Of still wider interest are the accounts of Cook’s three famous voyages, though unhappily much of the information gained by the naturalists who accompanied him on one or more of them seems to be irretrievably lost: the original observations of the elder Forster were not printed till 1844, and the valuable series of zoological drawings made by the younger Forster and William Ellis still remain unpublished in the British Museum. ‘The several accounts by John White, Collins, Phillip, Hunter and others, of the colonization of New South Wales at the end of the last century, ought not to be overlooked by any Australian orni- thologist. The only information belonging to this period on the Orni- thology of South America is contained in the two works on Chili by Molina, published at Bologna in 1776 and 1782. The travels of Le Vaillant in South Africa having ended in 1785, his great Ovseaua @ Afrique began to appear in Paris in 1797 ;1 but it is hard to speak patiently of this work, for several of the species described in it are certainly not, and never were inhabitants of that country—admittedly so in some cases, though in others he gives a long account of the circum- stances in which he observed them.?
From travellers who employ themselves in collecting the animals of any distant country the zoologists who stay at home and study those of their own district, be it great or small, are really not so much divided as at first might appear. Both may well be named “ Faunists,” and of the latter there were not a few who having turned their attention more or less to Ornithology should here be mentioned, and first among them Rzaczynski, who in 1721 brought out at Sandomirsk the Historia naturals curtosa regnt Polonix, to which an Auctuariwm was posthumously published at Danzig in 1742. This also may be perhaps the most proper place to notice the Historia Avium Hungarix of Grossinger, published at Posen in 1793. In 1734 J. L. Frisch began the long series of works on the Birds of Germany with which the literature of Ornithology is enriched, by his Vorstellung der Vogel Teutschlands, which was only completed in 1763, and, its coloured plates proving very attractive, was again issued at Berlin in 1817. The little fly-sheet of Zorn ?—for it is scarcely more—on the
1 Jn 1798 he issued a duodecimo edition of this work, which seems to be little knewn. ‘Two volumes, extending to No. 117 of the folio edition, are in my posses- sion, but I cannot say whether more appeared. His large work failed to obtain support, and finished with its sixth volume in 1808.
2 It has been charitably suggested that, his collection and notes having suffered shipwreck, he was induced to supply the latter from his memory and the former by the nearest approach to his lost specimens that he could obtain. This explanation, poor as it is, fails, however, in regard to some species.
* His earlier work under the title of Petinotheologie can hardly be deemed scientific,
INTRODUCTION 17
Birds of the Hercynian Forest made its appearance at Pappenheim in 1745. In 1756 Kramer published at Vienna a modest Elenchus of the plants and animals of Lower Austria, and J. D. Petersen produced at Altona in 1766 a Verzeichniss balthischer Vogel; while in 1791 J. B. Fischer’s Versuch einer Naturgeschichte von Livland appeared at Kéonigs- berg. Next year Beseke brought out at Mitau his Beytrag zur Naturge- schichte der Vogel Kurlands, and in 1794 Siemssen’s Handbuch of the Birds of Mecklenburg was published at Rostock. But these works, locally useful as they may have been, did not occupy the whole attention of German ornithologists, for in 1791, Bechstein reached the second volume of his Gemetnniitzige Naturgeschichte Deutschlands, treating of the Birds of that country, which ended with the fourth in 1795. Of this an abridged edition by the name of Ornithologisches Taschenbuch appeared in 1802 and 1803, with a supplement in 1812; while between 1805 and 1809 a fuller edition of the original was issued. Moreover in 1795 J. A. Naumann humbly began at Cothen a treatise on the Birds of the principality of Anhalt, which on its completion in 1804 was found to have swollen into an ornithology of Northern Germany and the neigh- bouring countries. Eight supplements were successively published be- tween 1805 and 1817, and in 1822 a new edition was required. This Naturgeschichte der Vogel Deutschlands, being almost wholly re-written by his son J. F. Naumann, is by far the best thing of the kind as yet pro- duced in any country. The fulness and accuracy of the text combined with the neat beauty of its coloured plates, have gone far to promote the study of Ornithology in Germany, and while essentially a popular work, since it is suited to the comprehension of all readers, it is throughout written with a simple dignity that commends it to the serious and scientific. Its twelfth and last volume was published in 1844—by no means too long a period for so arduous and honest a performance,—and a supplement was begun in 1847; but, the author dying in 1857, this continuation was finished in 1860 by the joint efforts of J. H. Blasius and Baldamus. In 1800 Borkhausen with others commenced at Darmstadt a Teutsche Ornithologie in folio which appeared at intervals till 1812, and remains unfinished, though a reissue of the portion published took place between 1837 and 1841.
Other countries on the Continent, though not quite so prolific as Germany, bore some ornithological fruit at this period; but in all Southern Europe only four faunal products can be named :—the Saggzo di Storia Naturale Bresciana of Pilati, published at Brescia in 1769; the Ornitologia del? Europa Meridionale of Bernini, published at Parma between 1772 and 1776; the Uccelli di Sardegna of Cetti, published at Sassari in 1776; and the Romana Ornithologia of Gilius, published at Rome in 1781—the last being in great part devoted to Pigeons and Poultry. More appeared in the North, for in 1770 Amsterdam sent forth the beginning of Nozeman’s Nederlandsche Vogelen, a fairly-illustrated work in folio, but only completed by Houttuyn in 1829, and in Scan- dinavia most of all was done. In 1746 the great Linneus had produced a Fauna Svecica, of which a second edition appeared in 1761, and a third
revised by Retzius in 1800. In 1764 Briinnich published at Copenhagen
rs DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
his Ornithologia Borealis, a compendious sketch of the Birds of all the countries then subject to the Danish crown. At the same place appeared in 1767 Leem’s work De Lapponibus Finmarchix, to which Gunnerus contributed some good notes on the Ornithology of Northern Norway, and at Copenhagen and Leipzig was published in 1780 the Fauna Groenlandica of Otho Fabricius.
Of strictly American origin can here be cited only Bartram’s Travels through North and South Carolina and Barton’s Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania,! both printed at Philadelphia, one in 1791, the other in 1799; but J. R. Forster published a Catalogue of the Animals of North America in London in 1771, and the following year described in the Philosophical Transactions a few Birds from Hudson’s Bay.2 A greater undertaking was Pennant’s Arctic Zoology, published in 1785, with a supplement in 1787. The scope of this work was originally intended to be limited to North America, but circumstances induced him to include all the species of Northern Europe and Northern Asia, and though not free from errors, it is a praiseworthy performance. A second edition appeared in 1792. The Ornithology of Britain naturally demands greater attention. The earliest list of British Birds we possess is, as already stated, that in Merrett’s Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum, printed in London in 1666.3 In 1677 Plot published his Natural History of Oxfordshire, which reached a second edition in 1705, and in 1686 that of Staffordshire. A similar work on Lancashire, Cheshire and the Peak was sent out in 1700 by Leigh, and one on Cornwall by Borlase in 1758— all these four being printed at Oxford. In 1766 appeared Pennant’s British Zoology, a well-illustrated folio, of which a second edition in octavo was published in 1768, and considerable additions (forming the nominally third edition) in 1770, while in 1777 there were two issues, one in octavo the other in quarto, each called the fourth edition. In 1812, long after the author’s death, another edition was printed, of which his son-in-law Hanmer was the reputed editor, but he received much assistance from Latham, and through carelessness many of the additions herein made have often been ascribed to Pennant himself. In 1769 Berkenhout gave to the world his Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain and Ireland, which reappeared under the title of Synopsis of the same in 1795. Tunstall’s Ormthologia Britannica, which was issued in 1771, is little more than a list of names* Hayes’s Natural History of British Birds, a folio of forty plates and corresponding text, shewing much ignorance of them on the part of the author, appeared between 1771 and 1775. In 1781 Nash’s
1 This rare book has been reprinted by the Willughby Society.
* Both of these treatises have also been reprinted by the Willughby Society.
° In 1667 there were two issues. pf a reprint of this book ; one, nominally a second edition, only differs from the other in having a new title-page. In anticipation of a revised edition Sir Thomas Browne prepared in or about 1671 (2) his ‘‘ Account of Birds found in Norfolk,” of which the draught, now in the British Museum, was printed in his collected works by Wilkin in 1885. If a fair copy was ever made its resting-place is unknown.
* It has been republished by the Willughby Society. Of similar character is Fothergill’s Ornithologia Britannica, a were list of names, Latin and English, printed in small folio at York in 1799.
INTRODUCTION Ig
W orcestershire included a few ornithological notices ; and Walcott in 1789 published an illustrated Synopsis of British Birds, coloured copies of which are rare. Simultaneously William Lewin commenced his Birds of Great Britain, in 7 quarto volumes, the last of which appeared in 1794, a re-issue of the whole in 8 volumes following between 1795 and 1801. In 1791 J. Heysham added to Hutchins’s Cumberland a list of birds of that county, while in the same year began Thomas Lord’s Entire New System of Ornithology, or Gicumenical History of British Birds, the un- grammatical text professedly written, or corrected, by Dr. Dupree, a pretentious and worthless work of which 38 parts were published in the course of the next five years. In 1794 Donovan commenced a History of British Birds which was only finished in 1819—the earlier portion being reissued about the same time. LBolton’s Harmonia Ruralis, an account of British Song-Birds, first appeared between 1794 and 1796. Other editions followed, one even 50 years later.!
All the foregoing British publications yield in importance to two that remain to be mentioned. In 1767 Pennant, several of whose works have already been named, entered into correspondence with Gilbert White, receiving from him much information, almost wholly drawn from his own observation, for the succeeding editions of the British Zoology. In 1769 White began exchanging letters of a similar character with Barrington. The epistolary intercourse with the former continued until 1780, and with the latter until 1787. In 1789 White’s share of the correspondence, together with some miscellaneous matter, was published as The Natural History of Selborne—from the name of the village in which he lived. Observations on Birds form the principal though by no means the whole theme of this book, which may be safely said to have done more to pro- mote a love of Ornithology in this country than any other work that has been written, nay more than all the other works (except one next to be mentioned) put together. It has passed through a far greater number of editions than any other work on Natural History in the whole world, and has become emphatically an English classic—the graceful simplicity of its style, the elevating tone of its spirit and the sympathetic chords it strikes recommending it to every lover of nature, while the severely scientific reader can find few errors in the statements it contains, whether of matter-of-fact or opinion. It is almost certain that more than half the zoologists of the British Islands for the past eighty years or more have been infected with their love of the study by Gilbert White ; and it can hardly be supposed that his influence will cease.”
1 I cannot vouch for the complete accuracy of some of the dates given above. They have puzzled even that accomplished bibliographer Dr. Coues. It was nobody’s business in those days to record the precise time of appearance of a work published in parts, and the date, when given at the foot of the plates, cannot always be trusted.
2 Next to the original edition, that known as Bennett’s, published in 1837, which was reissued in 1875 by Mr. Harting, was long deemed the best; but it must give place to that of Bell, which appeared in 1877, and contains much additional informa- tion of great interest. But the editions of Markwick, Herbert, Blyth and Jardine all possess features of merit. An elaborately prepared edition, issued in 1875 by one who gained great reputation as a naturalist, only shews his ignorance and his vulgarity. Since that time several popular writers have essayed other editions, though their labour may have been limited to the production of a preface in which
20 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
The other work to the importance of which on Ornithology in this country allusion has been made is Bewick’s History of British Birds. The first volume of this, containing the Land-Birds, appeared in 1797 1— the text being, it is understood, by Beilby—the second, containing the Water-Birds, in 1804. The woodcuts illustrating this work are generally of surpassing excellence, and it takes rank in the category of artistic publications. Fully admitting the extraordinary execution of the engrav- ings, every ornithologist may perceive that as portraits of the Birds represented they are of very unequal merit. Some of the figures were drawn from stuffed specimens, and accordingly perpetuate all the imper- fections of the original; others delineate species with the appearance of which the artist was not familiar, and these are either wanting in expres- sion or are caricatures ;2 but those that were drawn from live Birds, or represent species which he knew in life, are worthy of all praise. It is well known that the earlier editions of this work, especially if they be upon large paper, command extravagant prices ; but in reality the copies on smaller paper are now the rarer, for the stock of them has been con- sumed in nurseries and schoolrooms, where they have been torn up or worn out with incessant use. Moreover, whatever the lovers of the fine arts may say, it is nearly certain that the “ Bewick Collector” is mistaken in attaching so high a value to these old editions, for owing to the want of skill in printing—indifferent ink being especially assigned as one cause —many of the earlier issues fail to shew the most delicate touches of the engraver, which the increased care bestowed upon the edition of 1847 (published under the supervision of the late John Hancock) has revealed, —though it must be admitted that certain blocks have suffered from wear of the press so as to be incapable of any more producing the effect intended. Of the text it may be said that it is respectable, but no more. It has given satisfaction to thousands of readers in time past, and will, it may be hoped, give satisfaction to thousands in time to come.
The existence of these two works explains the widely-spread taste for Ornithology in this country, which is to foreigners so puzzling, and the
they generally contrive to display their incompetence. A more remarkable feature is the publication of a fairly printed edition at the price of sixpence! A curiously compressed German translation by F, A. A. Meyer appeared at Berlin in 1792, under the title of Beytrige zur Naturgeschichte von England ; and more than one reprint, apparently of Lady Dover’s “Bowdlerized” edition of 1833, has been issued in America (¢f. Coues, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. ii. p. 429). For information as to different editions published prior to and including that of Bell, see Notes and Queries, ser. 5, vii. pp. 241, 264, 296, 338, 471, viii. p. 304, and ix. p. 150.
The imitators of Gilbert White are countless. More than one has admittedly produced a very pretty book ; but on essaying a second the falling off is manifest. Others at once shew their shallowness, and good as may be their intention, their observations, however pleasant to read, are utterly valueless. Such writers can seldom rid themselves of the consciousness of their own personality, the absence of which is so charming in the author they more or less unconsciously mimic.
1 There were two issues—virtually two editions—of this with the same date on the title-page, though one of them is said not to have been published till the following year. Among several other indicia this may be recognized by the woodcut of the “Sea Hagle” at page 11 bearing at its base the inscription “ Wycliffe, 1791,” and by the additional misprint on page 145 of Saheniclus for Scheniclus.
* This is especially observable in the figures of the Birds-of-Prey.
INTRODUCTION 21
zeal—not always according to knowledge, but occasionally reaching to serious study—with which that taste is pursued.
Having thus noticed, and it is to be hoped pretty thoroughly, the chief ornithological works begun if not completed prior to the commence- ment of the present century, together with their immediate sequels, those which follow will require a very different mode of treatment, for their number is so great that it would be impossible for want of space to deal with them in the same extended fashion, though the attempt will finally be made to enter into details in the case of works constituting the founda- tion upon which apparently the superstructure of the future science has to be built. It ought not to need stating that much of what was, com- paratively speaking, only a few years ago regarded as scientific labour is now no longer to be so considered. The mere fact that the principle of Evolution, and all its admission carries with it, has been accepted in some form or other by almost all naturalists, has rendered obsolete nearly every theory that had hitherto been broached, and in scarcely any branch of zoological research was theory more rife than in Ornithology. One of these theories must presently be noticed at some length on account of the historical importance which attaches to its malefic effects in impeding the progress of true Ornithology in Britain ; but charity enjoins us to consign all the rest as much as possible to oblivion.
On reviewing the progress of Ornithology since the end of the last century, the first thing that will strike us is the fact that general works, though still undertaken, have become proportionally fewer, and such as exist are apt to consist of mere explanations of systematic methods that had already been more or less fully propounded, while special works, whether relating to the ornithic portion of the Fauna of any particular country, or limited to certain groups of Birds—works to which of late years the name of “ Monograph” has become wholly restricted—have become far more numerous. But this seems to be the natural law in all sciences, and its cause is not far to seek. As the knowledge of any branch of study extends, it outgrows the opportunities and capabilities of most men to follow it as a whole; and, since the true naturalist, by reason of the irresistible impulse which drives him to work, cannot be idle, he is compelled to confine his energies to narrower fields of investiga- tion. That in a general way this is for some reason to be regretted is true ; but, like all natural operations, it carries with it some recompense, and the excellent work done by so-called “ specialists ” has over and over again proved of the greatest use to advancement in different departments of science, and in none more than in Ornithology.!
Another change has come over the condition of Ornithology, as of kindred sciences, induced by the multiplication of learned societies which issue publications, as well as of periodicals of greater or less scientific pretension—the latter generally enjoying a circulation far wider than the
1 The truth of the preceding remarks may be so obvious to most men who have acquaintance with the subject that their introduction here may seem unnecessary ; but it is certain that the facts they state have been very little appreciated by many writers who profess to give an account of the progress of Natural History during the present century.
22 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
former. Both kinds increase yearly, and the desponding mind may fear the possibility of its favourite study expiring through being smothered by its own literature. Without anticipating such a future disaster, and look- ing merely to what has gone before, itis necessary here to premise that, in the observations which immediately follow, treatises which have appeared in the publications of learned bodies or in other scientific periodicals must, except they be of prime importance, be hereinafter passed unnoticed; but their omission will be the less felt because the more recent of those of a “faunal” character are generally mentioned in the text (GEOGRAPHICAL DisTRIBUTION) under the different countries with which they deal, while reference to the older of these treatises is usually given by the writers of the newer. Still it seems advisable here to furnish some connected account of the progress made in the ornitho- logical knowledge of those countries in which the readers of the present volume may be supposed to take the most lively interest—namely, the British Islands and those parts of the European continent which lie nearest to them or are most commonly sought by travellers, the Dominion of Canada and the United States of America, the British West Indies, South Africa, India, together with Australia and New Zealand. The more important Monographs, again, will usually be found cited in the series of special articles contained in this work, though, as will be immediately perceived, there are some so-styled Monographs, which by reason of the changed views of classification that at present obtain, have lost their restricted character, and for all practical purposes have now to be regarded as general works. ; It will perhaps be most convenient to begin by mentioning some of these last, and in particular a number of them which appeared at Paris early in this century. First in order of them is the Histoire Naturelle d’une partie @ Oiseaux nouveaux et rares de VAmérique et des Indes, a folio volume? published in 1801 by Le Vaillant. This is devoted to the very distinct and not nearly-allied groups of Hornbills and of Birds which for want of a better name we call “Chatterers,” and is illus- trated, like those works of which a notice immediately follows, by coloured plates, done in what was then considered to be the highest style of art and by the best draughtsmen procurable. The first volume of a Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets, a companion work by the same author, appeared in the same year, and is truly a Monograph, since the Parrots constitute a Family of Birds so naturally severed from all others, that there has rarely been anything else confounded with them. The second volume came out in 1805, and a third was issued in 1837-38 long after the death of its predecessor’s author, by Bourjot St.-Hilaire. Between 1803 and 1806 Le Vaillant also published in just the same style two volumes with the title of Histoire Naturelle des Oiseau de Paradis et des Rolliers, swivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus, an assemblage of forms, which, miscellaneous as it is, was surpassed in incongruity by a fourth work on the same scale, the Histoire Naturelle des Promerops et des Guépiers, des Couroucous et des Touracos, for herein are found Jays, Wax-
Viniyaramiasls ae : There is also an issue of this, as of the same author’s other works, on large quarto paper,
INTRODUCTION 23
wings, the Cock-of-the-Rock (Rupicola) and what not besides. The plates in this last are by Barraband, for many years regarded as the perfection of ornithological artists, and indeed the figures, when they happen to have been drawn from the life, are not bad; but his skill was quite unable to vivify the preserved specimens contained in Museums, and when he had only these as subjects he simply copied the distortions of the “bird-stuffer.” The following year, 1808, being aided by Tem- minck of Amsterdam, of whose son we shall presently hear more, Le Vaillant brought out the sixth volume of his Oiseaux d’ Afrique, already mentioned. Four more volumes of this work were promised ; but the means of executing them were denied to him, and, though he lived until 1824, his publications ceased.
A similar series of works was projected and begun about the same time as that of Le Vaillant by Audebert and Vieillot, though the former, who was by profession a painter and illustrated the work, had died more than a year before the appearance of the two volumes, bearing date 1802, and entitled Oiseaux dorés ow a reflets métalliques, the effect of the plates in which he sought to heighten by the use of gilding. ‘The first volume contains the “Colibris, Oiseaux-mouches, Jacamars et Pro- merops,” the second the “Grimpereaux” and “Oiseaux de Paradis ”— associations which set all the laws of systematic method at defiance. His colleague, Vieillot, brought out in 1805 a Histoire Naturelle des plus beaua Chanteurs de la Zone Torride with figures by Langlois of tropical Fenches, Grosbeaks, Buntings and other hard-billed Birds; and in 1807 two volumes of a Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de V Amérique Septen- trionale, without, however, paying much attention to the limits commonly assigned by geographers to that part of the world. In 1805 Anselme Desmarest published a Histovre Naturelle des Tangaras, des Manakins et des Todiers, which, though belonging to the same category as all the former, differs from them in its more scientific treatment of the subjects to which it refers ; and, in 1808, Temminck, whose father’s aid to Le Vaillant has already been noticed, brought out at Paris a Histoire Naturelle des Pigeons, illustrated by Madame Knip, who had drawn the plates for Desmarest’s volume.t
Since we have begun by considering these large illustrated works in which the text is made subservient to the coloured plates, it may be convenient to continue our notice of such others of similar character as it may be expedient to mention here, though thereby we shall be led somewhat far afield. Most of them are but luxuries, and there is some degree of truth in the remark of Andreas Wagner in his Report on the Progress of Zoology for 1843, drawn up for the Ray Society (p. 60), that they “are not adapted for the extension and promotion of science, but must inevitably, on account of their unnecessary costliness, constantly tend to reduce the number of naturalists who are able to avail them- selves of them, and they thus enrich ornithology only to its ultimate
1 Temminck subsequently reproduced, with many additions, the text of this volume in his Histoire Naturelle des Pigeons et des Gallinacées, published at Am- sterdam in 1813-15, in 3 vols. 8vo. Between 1838 and 1848 Florent-Provost brought out at Paris a further set of illustrations of Pigeons by Mdme. Knip.
24 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
injury.” Earliest in date, as it is greatest in bulk, stands Audubon’s egregious Birds of America, in four volumes, containing 435 plates, of which the first part appeared in London in 1827 and the last in 1838.1 It seems not to have been the author’s original intention to publish any letterpress to this enormous work, but to let the plates tell their own story, though finally, with the assistance, as is now known, of William Macgillivray, a text, on the whole more than respectable, was produced in five large octavos under the title of Ornithological Biography, of which more will be said in the sequel. Audubon has been greatly extolled as an ornithological artist ; but he was far too much addicted to representing his subjects in violent action and in postures that outrage nature, while his drawing is very frequently defective? In 1866 Mr. D. G. Elliot began, and in 1869 finished, a sequel to Audubon’s great work in two volumes, on the same scale—The New and hitherto Unfigured Species of the Birds of North America, containing life-size figures of all those which had been added to its fauna since the completion of the former.
In 1830 John Edward Gray commenced the Illustrations of Indian Zoology, a series of plates, mostly of Birds, from drawings by native artists in the collection of General Hardwicke, whose name is therefore associated with the work. Scientific names are assigned to the species figured ; but no text was ever supplied. In 1832 Lear, well known as a painter, brought out his Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidx, a volume which deserves especial notice from the fidelity to nature and the artistic skill with which the figures were executed.
This same year (1832) saw the beginning of the marvellous series of works by which the name of John Gould is likely to be always re- membered, A Century of Birds from the Himalaya Mountains was followed by The Birds of Europe, in five volumes, published between 1832 and 1837, while in 1834 appeared A Monograph of the Ramphas- tide, of which a second edition was some years later called for ; and then the Icones Aviwm, of which only two parts were published (1837-38), while A Monograph of the Trogonidz (1888), also reached a second edition (1858-75). In 1837-38 he also brought out the first two parts of his Birds of Australia, but speedily perceiving that he could not do justice to the ornithology of the vast island-continent without visiting it, he suspended the publication, and in 1838 sailed for New South Wales. Returning thence in 1840, he at once cancelled the portion he had issued and commenced anew this, the greatest of all his works, which was
1 In contrast to this, the largest of ornithological works, I may mention a Histoire Naturelle en Miniature de de [sic] 48 Oiseaux (96 pp. Paris : 1816). The only copy I have seen appears to be in the original calf binding, and measures 2°6 by 2°15 inches. I am indebted for the loan of it to Mr. Robert Service.
* On the completion of these two works, for they must be regarded as distinct, an octavo edition in seven volumes under the title of Zhe Birds of America was published in 1840-44, In this the large plates were reduced by means of the
camera lucida,” the text was revised, and the whole systematically arranged. Other reprints have since been issued, but they are vastly inferior both in execution
and value, A sequel to the octavo Birds of America, corresponding with it in form,
was brought out in 1853-55 by Cassin as Illustrations of the Birds of California Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America.
INTRODUCTION 25
finished in 1848 in seven volumes, to which five supplementary parts, forming another volume, were subsequently (1851-69) added. In 1849 he began A Monograph of the Trochilide or Humming-birds, extending to five volumes, the last of which appeared in 1861, and has since been followed by a supplement by Dr. Sharpe, who since the author’s death in 1881 has completed The Birds of Asia, in seven volumes (1850-83), and The Birds of New Guinea, begun in 1875. A Monograph of the Odonto- phorine or Partridges of America (1844-50), and The Birds of Great Britain, in five volumes (1862-73) make up the wonderful tale consisting of more than forty folio volumes, and containing more than 3000 coloured plates! The earlier of these works were illustrated by Mrs. Gould, and the figures in them are fairly good ; but those in the later, except when (as he occasionally did) he secured the services of Mr. Wolf, are not so much to be commended. There is, it is true, a smoothness and finish about them not often seen elsewhere; but, as though to avoid the exaggerations of Audubon, Gould usually adopted the tamest of attitudes in which to represent his subjects, whereby expression as well as vivacity is wanting. Moreover, both in drawing and in colouring there is fre- quently much that is untrue to nature, so that it has not uncommonly happened for them to fail in the chief object of all zoological plates, that of affording sure means of recognizing specimens on comparison. In estimating the letterpress, which was avowedly held to be of secondary importance to the plates, we must bear in mind that, to ensure the success of his works, it had to be written to suit a very peculiarly com- posed body of subscribers. Nevertheless a scientific character was so adroitly assumed that scientific men—some of them even ornithologists— have thence been led to believe the text had a scientific value, and that of a high class. However it must also be remembered that, throughout the whole of his career, Gould consulted the convenience of working orni- thologists by almost invariably refraining from including in his folio works the technical description of any new species without first pub- lishing it in some journal of comparatively easy access.
An ambitious attempt to produce in England a general series of coloured plates on a large scale was Fraser’s Zoologia Typica, the first part of which bears date 1841-42. Others appeared at irregular inter- vals until 1849, when the work, which never received the support it deserved, was discontinued. The 70 plates (46 of which represent Birds) composing, with some explanatory letterpress, the volume are by C, Cousens and H. N. Turner,—the latter (as his publications prove) a zoologist of much promise, who in 1851 died of a wound received in dissecting. The chief object of the author, who had been naturalist to the Niger Expedition, and curator to the Museum of the Zoological Society of London, was to figure the animals contained in its gardens or described in its Proceedings, which until the year 1848 were not illustrated.
The publication of the Zoological Sketches of Mr. Wolf, from animals
1 In 1850 Mr. F. H. Waterhouse brought out a careful pamphlet shewing The Dates of Publication of some of Gould’s works, and in 1893 Dr. Sharpe an Analytical Index to them. It is books of this kind that place the literature of ornithology so far in advance of that relating to any other branch of zoology.
26 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
in the gardens of the Zoological Society, was begun about 1855, with a brief text by Mitchell, at that time the Society’s secretary, in illustra- tion of them. After his death in 1859, the explanatory letterpress was rewritten by Mr. Sclater, his successor in that office, and a volume was completed in 1861. Upon this a second series was commenced, and brought to an end in 1868. Though a comparatively small number of species of Birds are figured in this magnificent work (17 only in the first series, and 22 in the second), it must be mentioned here, for their likenesses are so admirably executed as to place it in regard to orni- thological portraiture at the head of all others. There is not a plate that is unworthy of the greatest of all animal painters.
Proceeding to illustrated works generally of less pretentious size but of greater ornithological utility than the books last mentioned, which are fitter for the drawing-room than the study, we next have to consider some in which the text is not wholly subordinated to the plates, though the latter still form a conspicuous feature of the pub- lication. First of these in point of time as well as in importance is the Nouveau Recueil des Planches Coloriés @Otseauaz of Ternminck and Laugier, intended as a sequel to the Planches Enluminees of D’Aubenton before noticed, and like that work issued both in folio and quarto size. The first portion of this was published at Paris in 1820, and of its 102 livraisons, which appeared with great irregularity (Ibis, 1868, p. 500), the last was issued in 1839, containing the titles of the five volumes that the whole forms, together with a “Tableau Méthodique,” which but indifferently serves the purpose of an index. There are 600 plates, but the exact number of species figured (which has been computed at 661) is not so easily ascertained. Generally the subject of each plate has letterpress to correspond, but in some cases this is wanting, while on the other hand descriptions of species not figured are occasionally intro- duced, and usually observations on the distribution and construction of each genus or group are added. The plates, which shew no improve- ment on those of Martinet, are after drawings by Huet and Prétre, the former being perhaps the less bad draughtsman of the two, for he seems to have had an idea of what a bird when alive looks like, though he was not able to give his figures any vitality, while the latter simply delineated the stiff and dishevelled specimens from museum shelves. Still the colouring is pretty well done, and experience has proved that generally speaking there is not much difficulty in recognizing the species represented. The letterpress is commonly limited to technical details, and is not always accurate; but it is of its kind useful, for in general knowledge of the outside of Birds Temminck probably surpassed any of his contemporaries. The “Tableau Méthodique” offers a convenient concordance of the old Planches Enluminés and its successor, and is arranged after the system set forth by Temminck in the first volume of the second edition of his Manuel @’ Ornithologie, of which more presently. ,
The Galérie des Oiseaux, a rival work, with plates by Oudart, seems to have been begun immediately after the former. The original project was apparently to give a figure and description of every species of Bird; but that was soon found to be impossible; and, when six parts had been issued,
INTRODUCTION 27
with text by some unnamed author, the scheme was brought within prac- ticable limits, and the writing of the letterpress was entrusted to Vieillot, who, proceeding on a systematic plan, performed his task very creditably, completing the work, which forms two quarto volumes, in 1825, the original text and 57 plates being relegated to the end of the second volume as a sup- plement. His portion is illustrated by 299 coloured plates that, wretched as they are, have been continually reproduced in various text-books—a fact; possibly due to their subjects having been judiciously selected. It is a tradition that, this work not being favourably regarded by the authorities of the Paris Museum, its draughtsman and author were refused closer access to the specimens required, and had to draw and describe them through the glass as they stood on the shelves of the cases. .
In 1827 Jardine and Selby began a series of Illustrations of Ornithology, the several parts of which appeared at long and irregular intervals, so that it was not until 1835 that three volumes containing 150 plates were completed. Then they set about a Second Series, which, forming a single volume with 53 plates, was finished in 1843.1 These authors, being zealous amateur artists, were for the most part their own draughtsmen and engravers. In 1828 James Wilson began, under the title of Illustrations of Zoology, the publication of a series of his own drawings (which he did not, however, himself engrave) with corresponding letterpress. Of the 36 plates illustrating this volume, a small folio, 20 are devoted to Ornithology, and contain figures, not very successful, of several species rare at the time.
Though the three works last mentioned fairly come under the same category as the Planches Enluminées and the Planches Coloriées, no one of them can be properly deemed their rightful heir. The claim to that succession was made in 1845 by Des Murs for his Iconographie Ornitho- logique, which, containing 72 plates by Prévot and Oudart? (the latter of whom had marvellously improved in his drawings since he worked with Vieillot), was completed in 1849. Simultaneously with this Du Bus began a work on a plan precisely similar, the Hsquisses Ornithologiques, illustrated by Severeyns, which, however, stopped short in 1849 with its 37th plate, while the letterpress unfortunately does not go beyond that belonging to the 20th. In 1866 the succession was again taken up by the Exotic Ornithology of Messrs. Sclater and Salvin, containing 100 plates, representing 104 species, all from Central or South America, which are neatly executed by Mr. Smit. The accompanying letterpress is in some places copious, and useful lists of the species of various genera are occasionally subjoined, adding to the definite value of the work, which, forming one volume, was completed in 1869.
Lastly here must be mentioned Rowley’s Ornithological Miscellany, in three quarto volumes, profusely illustrated, which appeared between 1875 and 1878. The contents are as varied as the authorship, and, most of the leading English ornithologists having contributed to the work, some of the papers are extremely good, while in the plates, which are in Mr.
1 Gf. Sherborn, Jbis, 1894, p. 326.
2 On the title-page credit is given to the latter alone, but only two-thirds of the plates (from pl. 25 to the end) bear his name.
28 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
Keulemans’s best manner, many rare species of Birds are figured, some of them for the first time.
All the works lately named have been purposely treated at some length, since being costly they are not easily accessible. The few next to be mentioned, being of smaller size (octavo), may be within reach of more persons, and therefore can be passed over in a briefer fashion without detriment. In many ways, however, they are nearly as important. Swainson’s Zoological Illustrations, in three volumes, containing 182 plates, whereof 70 represent Birds, appeared between 1820 and 1821, and in 1829 a Second Series of the same was begun by him, which, extending to another three volumes, contained 48 more plates of Birds out of 136, and was completed in 1833. All the figures were drawn by the author, who as an ornithological artist had no rival in his time. Every plate is not beyond criticism, but his worst drawings shew more knowledge of bird-life than do the best of his English or French con- temporaries, A work of somewhat similar character, but one in which the letterpress is of greater value, is the Centurie Zoologique of Lesson, a single volume that though bearing the date 1830 on its title-page, is believed to have been begun in 1829,! and was certainly not finished until 1831. It received the benefit of Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire’s assistance. Notwithstanding its name it only contains 80 plates, but of them 42, all by Prétre and in his usual stiff style, represent Birds. Concurrently with this volume appeared Lesson’s Traité d’ Ornithologie, which is dated 1831, and may perhaps be here most conveniently mentioned, Its professedly systematic form strictly relegates it to another group of works, but the presence of an “ Atlas” (also in octavo) of 119 plates to some extent justifies its notice in this place. Between 1831 and 1834 the same author brought out, in continuation of his Centurve, his Illustrations de Zoologie with 60 plates, 20 of which represent Birds, In 1832 Kittlitz began to publish some Kupfertafeln zur Natur- geschichte der Vogel, in which many new species are figured ; but the work came to an end with its 36th plate in the following year. In 1845 Reichenbach commenced with his Praktische Naturgeschichte der Vogel the extraordinary series of illustrated publications which, under titles far too numerous here to repeat, ended in or about 1855, and are commonly known collectively as his Vollsttindigste Naturgeschichte der Vogel.2, Herein are contained more than 900 coloured and more than 100 uncoloured plates, which are crowded with the figures of Birds, a large proportion of them reduced copies from other works, and especially those of Gould.
It now behoves us to turn to general and particularly systematic works in which plates, if they exist at all, form but an accessory to the text. These need not detain us for long, since, however well some of them may have been executed, regard being had to their epoch, and whatever repute some of them may have achieved, they are, so far as general information and especially classification is concerned, wholly
1 In 1828 he had brought out, under the title of Manuel d’ Ornithologie, two handy duodecimos which are very good of their kind.
* Technically speaking they are in quarto, but their size is so small that they may be well spoken of here. In 1879 Dr. A. B. Meyer brought out an Index to them,
INTRODUCTION 29
obsolete, and most of them almost useless except as matters of antiquarian interest. It will be enough merely to name Duméril’s Zoologie Analytique (1806) and Gravenhorst’s Vergleichende Uebersicht des linneischen und einiger neuern zooloyischen Systeme (1807); nor need we linger over Shaw’s General Zoology, a pretentious compilation continued by Stephens. The last seven of its fourteen volumes include the Class Aves, and the first part of them appeared in 1809, but, the original author dying in 1815, when only two volumes of Birds were published, the remainder was brought to an end in 1826 by his successor, who afterwards became well known as an entomologist. The engravings which these volumes contain are mostly bad copies, often of bad figures, though many are piracies from Bewick, and the whole is a most unsatisfactory performance. Of a very different kind is the next we have to notice, the Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Aviwm of Illiger, published at Berlin in 1811, which must in its day have been a valuable little manual, and on many points it may now be consulted to advantage—the characters of the genera being admirably given, and good explanatory lists of the technical terms of Ornithology furnished. The classification was quite new, and made a step distinctly in advance of anything that had before appeared. In 1816 Vieillot published at Paris an Analyse dune nouvelle Ornithologie élémentaire, containing a method of classification which he had tried in vain to get printed before, both in Turin and in London.? Some of the ideas in this are said to have been taken from Illiger; but the two systems seem to be wholly distinct. Vieillot’s was afterwards more fully expounded in the series of articles which he contributed between 1816 and 1819 to the Second Edition of the Nouveaw Dictionnaire d Histoire Naturelle, containing much valuable information. The views of neither of these systematizers pleased Temminck, who in 1817 replied rather sharply to Vieillot in some Observations sur la Classification métho- dique des Otseaux, a pamphlet published at Amsterdam, and prefixed to the second edition of his Manuel d’ Ornithologie, which appeared in 1820, an Analyse du Systeme Géuéral @ Ornithologie. This proved a great success, and his arrangement, though by no means simple,’ was not only adopted by many ornithologists of almost every country, but still has some adherents. The following year Ranzani of Bologna, in his Elementi di
1 Tlliger may be considered the founder of the school of somenclatural purists. He would not tolerate any of the “ barbarous” generic terms adopted by other writers, though some had been in use for many years.
2 The method was communicated to the Turin Academy, 10th January 1814, and was ordered to be printed (Mém. Ac. Sc. Turin, 1813-14, p. xxviii.) ; but, through the derangements of that stormy period, the order was never carried out (em. Accad. Sc. Torino, xxiii. p. xcvii.). The minute-book of the Linnean Society of London shews that his Prolusio was read at meetings of that Society between 15th November 1814 and 21st February 1815. Why it was not at once accepted is not told, but the entry respecting it, which must be of much later date, in the “Register of Papers” is ‘Published already.” It is due to Vieillot to mention these facts, as he has been accused of publishing his method in haste to anticipate some of Cuvier’s views, but he might well complain of the delay in London. Some reparation has been made to his memory by the reprinting of his Analyse by the Willughby Society.
% He recognized sixteen Orders of Birds, while Vieillot had been content with five. and Illiger with seven.
d
jo DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
SS Ee SS SS
Zoologia—a very respectable compilation—came to treat of Birds, and then followed to some extent the plan of De Blainville and Merrem (concerning which much more has to be said by and by) placing the “Struthious” Birds in an Order by themselves! In 1827 Wagler brought out the first part of a Systema Avium, in this form never com- pleted, consisting of 49 detached monographs of as many genera, the species of which are most elaborately described. The arrangement he subsequently adopted for them and for other groups is to be found in his Natiirliches System der Amphibien (pp. 77-128), published in 1830, and is too fanciful to require any further attention. The several attempts at system-making by Kaup, from his Allgemeine Zoologie in 1829 to his Ueber Classification der Vogel in 1849, were equally arbitrary and abortive ; but his Skizzirte Entwickelungs-Geschichte in 1829 must be here named, as it is so often quoted on account of the number of new genera which the peculiar views he had embraced compelled him to invent. These views he shared more or less with Vigors and Swainson, and to them attention will be immediately especially invited, while consideration of the scheme gradually developed from 1831 onward by Charles Lucien Bonaparte, and still not without its influence, is deferred until we come to treat of the rise and progress of what we may term the reformed school of Ornitho- logy. Yet injustice would be done to one of the ablest of those now to be called the old masters of the science if mention were not here made of the Conspectus Generum Avium, begun in 1850 by the naturalist last named, with the help of Schlegel, and unfortunately interrupted by its author’s death six years later.2 The systematic publications of George Robert Gray, so long in charge of the ornithological collection of the British Museum, began with A List of the Genera of Birds published in 1840. This, having been closely, though by no means in a hostile spirit, criticized by Strickland (Ann. Nat. Hist. vi. p. 410; vii. pp. 26 and 159), was followed by a Second Edition in 1841, in which nearly all the corrections of the reviewer were adopted, and in 1844 began the publica- tion of The Genera of Birds, beautifully illustrated—first by Mitchell and afterwards by Mr. Wolf—which will always keep Gray’s name in remembrance. The enormous labour required for this work seems scarcely to have been appreciated, though it remains to this day one of the most useful books in an ornithologist’s library. Yet it must be confessed that its author was hardly an ornithologist but for the accident of his calling. He was a thoroughly conscientious clerk, devoted to his duty and unsparing of trouble. However, to have conceived the idea of executing a work on so grand a scale as this—it forms three folio volumes, and contains 185 coloured and 148 uncoloured plates, with references to upwards of 2400 generic names—was in itself a mark of genius, and it was brought to a successful conclusion in 1849.3 Costly as it necessarily
1 The classification of Latreille in 1825 (Familles Naturelles du Réegne Animal, pp. 67-88) needs naming only, for the author, great as an entomologist, had no special
knowledge of Birds, and his greatest merit, that of placing Opisthocomus next to the Gallinw, was perhaps a happy accident.
2 To this indispensable work a good index was supplied in 1865 by Dr. Finsch. : iF Capt. Thomas Browne’s Illustration of the Genera of Birds, begun in 1845 in imitation of Gray’s work, is discreditable to all concerned with it. It soon ceased to
INTRODUCTION 31
was, it has been of great service to working ornithologists. In 1855 Gray brought out, as one of the Museum publications, A Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera of Birds, a handy little volume, naturally founded on the larger works. Its chief drawback is that it does not give any more reference to the authority for a generic term than the name of its inventor and the year of its application, though of course more precise information would have at least doubled the size of the book. The same deficiency became still more apparent when, between 1869 and 1871, he published his Hand-List of Genera and Species of Birds in three octavo volumes (or parts, as they are called). Never was a book better named, for the working ornithologist must almost live with it in his hand, and though he has constantly to deplore its shortcomings, one of which especially is the wrong principle on which its index is constructed, he should be thankful that such a work exists. Many of its defects are, or perhaps it were better said ought to be, supplied by Giebel’s Thesaurus Ornithologiz, also in three volumes (1872-77), a work admirably planned, but the execution of which, whether through the author’s carelessness or the printer’s fault, or a combination of both, is lamentably disappointing. Again and again it will afford the enquirer who consults it valuable hints, but he must be mindful never to trust a single reference in it until it has been verified. It remains to warn the reader also that, useful as are both this work and those of Gray, their utility is almost solely confined to experts.
With the exception to which reference has just been made, scarcely any of the ornithologists hitherto named indulged their imagination in theories or speculations, Nearly all were content to prosecute their labours in a plain fashion consistent with common sense, plodding steadily onwards in their efforts to describe and group the various species, as one after another they were made known. But this was not always to be, and now a few words must be said respecting a theory which was pro- mulgated with great zeal by its upholders during the end of the first and early part of the second quarter of the present century, and for some years seemed likely to carry all before it. The success it gained was doubtless due in some degree to the difficulty which most men had in comprehending it, for it was enwrapped in alluring mystery, but more to the confidence with which it was announced as being the long looked- for key to the wonders of creation, since its promoters did not hesitate to term it the discovery of “the Natural System,” though they condescended, by way of explanation to less exalted intellects than their own, to allow it the more moderate appellation of the Circular or Quinary System.
A comparison of the relation of created beings to a number of inter- secting circles is as old as the days of Nieremberg, who in 1635 wrote (Historia Nature, lib, iii. cap. 3)—“ Nullus hiatus est, nulla fractio, nulla dispersio formarum, invicem connexa sunt velut annulus annulo” ; but it is almost clear that he was thinking only of a chain. In 1806 Fischer de Waldheim, in his Tableaua Synoptiques de Zoognosie (p. 181), quoting appear and remains incomplete. Had it been finished it would have been useless,
The author had before (1831) attempted a similar act of piracy upon Wilson’s American Ornithology.
j2 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
Nieremberg, extended his figure of speech, and, while justly deprecating the notion that the series of forms belonging to any particular group of creatures—the Mammalia was that whence he took his instance—-could be placed in a straight line, imagined the various genera to be arrayed in a series of contiguous circles around Man as a centre. Though there is nothing to shew that Fischer intended, by what is here said, to do any- thing else than illustrate more fully the marvellous interconnexion of different animals, or that he attached any realistic meaning to his metaphor, his words were eagerly caught up by the prophet of the new faith. This was William Sharpe Macleay, a man of education and real genius, who in 1819 and 1821 brought out a work under the title of Hor Entomologice, which was soon after hailed by Vigors as containing a new revelation, and applied by him to Ornithology in some “ Observa- tions on the Natural Affinities that connect the Orders and Families of Birds,” read before the Linnean Society of London in 1823, and after- wards published in its 7ransactions (xiv. pp. 395-517). In the following year Vigors returned to the subject in some papers published in the recently established Zoological Journal, and found an energetic condisciple and coadjutor in Swainson, who, for more than a dozen years—to the end, in fact, of his career as an ornithological writer—was instant in season and out of season in pressing on all his readers the views he had, through Vigors, adopted from Macleay, though not without some modi- fication of detail if not of principle. What these views were it would be manifestly improper for a sceptic to state except in the terms of a believer. Their enunciation must, therefore, be given in Swainson’s own words, though it must be admitted that space cannot be found here for the diagrams, which it was alleged were necessary for the right under- standing of the theory. This theory, as originally propounded by Macleay, was said by Swainson in 1835 (Geogr. and Classific. of Animals, p- 202) to have consisted of the following propositions :1—
“1, That the series of natural animals is continuous, forming, as it were, a circle ; so that, upon commencing at any one given point, and thence tracing all the modifications of structure, we shall be imperceptibly led, after passing through numerous forms, again to the point from which we started.
“2. That no groups are natural which do not exhibit, or shew an evident tend- ency to exhibit, such a circular series.
“3, That the primary divisions of every large group are ten, five of which are composed of comparatively large circles, and five of smaller: these latter being termed osculant, and being intermediate between the former, which they serve to connect.
“4, That there is a tendency in such groups as are placed at the opposite points of a circle of affinity ‘to meet each other.’
“5, That one of the five larger groups into which every natural circle is divided “bears a resemblance to all the rest, or, more strictly speaking, consists of types
which represent those of each of the four other groups, together with a type peculiar to itself.’ ”
As subsequently modified by Swainson (tom. ctt. pp. 224, 225), the foregoing propositions take the following form ;—
1 I prefer, giving them here in Swainson’s version, because he seems to have set them forth more clearly and concisely than Macleay ever did, and, moreover, Swain- son’s application of them to Ornithology—a branch of science that lay outside of Macleay’s proper studies—appears to be more suitable to the present occasion,
INTRODUCTION 33
“T. That every natural series of beings, in its progress from a given point, either actually returns, or evinces a tendency to return, again to that point, thereby forming a circle.
“Tf. The primary circular divisions of every group are three actually, or five apparently.
“JII. The contents of such a circular group are symbolically (or analogically) represented by the contents of all other circles in the animal kingdom.
“TV. That these primary divisions of every group are characterized by definite peculiarities of form, structure and economy, which, under diversified modifications, are uniform throughout the animal kingdom, and are therefore to be regarded as the PRIMARY TYPES OF NATURE.
“Vv. That the different ranks or degrees of circular groups exhibited in the animal kingdom are NINE in number, each being involved within the other.”
Though, as above stated, the theory thus promulgated owed its temporary success chiefly to the extraordinary assurance and pertinacity with which it was urged upon a public generally incapable of under- standing what it meant, that it received some support from men of science must be admitted. A “circular system” was advocated by the eminent botanist Fries, and the views of Macleay met with the partial approbation of the celebrated entomologist Kirby, while at least as much may be said of the imaginative Oken, whose mysticism far surpassed that of the Quinarians. But it is obvious to every one who nowadays in- dulges in the profitless pastime of studying their writings that, as a whole, they failed in grasping the essential difference between homology (or “affinity,” as they generally termed it) and analogy (which is only a learned name for an uncertain kind of resemblance)—though this differ- ence had been fully understood and set forth by Aristotle himself—and, moreover, that in seeking for analogies on which to base their foregone conclusions they were often put to hard shifts. Another singular fact is that they often seemed to be totally unaware of the tendency if not the meaning of some of their own expressions; thus Macleay could write, and doubtless in perfect good faith (Trans. Linn. Soc. xvi. p. 9, note), “Naturalists have nothing to do with mysticism, and but little with @ priort reasoning.” Yet his followers, if not he himself, were ever making use of- language in the highest degree metaphorical, and were always explaining facts in accordance with preconceived opinions. Fleming, already the author of a harmless and extremely orthodox Philosophy of Zoology, pointed out in 1829 in the Quarterly Review (xli. pp. 302-327) some of the fallacies of Macleay’s method, and in return provoked from him a reply, in the form of a letter addressed to Vigors On the Dying Struggle of the Dichotomous System, couched in lan- guage the force of which no one even at the present day can deny, though to the modern naturalist its invective power contrasts ludicrously with the strength of its ratiocination. But, confining ourselves to what is here our special business, it is to be remarked that perhaps the heaviest blow dealt at these strange doctrines was that delivered by Rennie, who, in an edition of Montagw’s Ornithological Dictionary (pp. xxxiii.-lv.), published in 1831 and again issued in 18338, attacked the Quinary System, and especially its application to Ornithology by Vigors and Swainson, in a way that might perhaps have demolished it, had not the author mingled with his undoubtedly sound reasoning much that is
54 DICTIONARY “OF BIRDS.
foreign to any question with which a naturalist, as such, ought to deal— though that herein he was only following the example of one of his opponents, who had constantly treated the subject in like manner, is to be allowed. This did not hinder Swainson, who had succeeded in getting the ornithological portion of the first zoological work ever pub- lished at the expense of the British Government (namely, the Fauna Boreali-Americana) executed in accordance with his own opinions, from maintaining them more strongly than ever in several of the volumes treat- ing of Natural History which he contributed to the Cabinet Cyclopedia— among others that from which we have just given some extracts—and in what may be deemed the culmination in England of the Quinary System, the volume of the ‘ Naturalist’s Library” on The Natural Arrangement and History of Flycatchers (1838), an unhappy performance mentioned in the body of the present work (p. 274, note). This seems to have been his last attempt ; for, two years later, his Bibliography of Zoology shews little trace of his favourite theory, though nothing he had uttered in its support was retracted. Appearing almost simultaneously with that work, an article by Strickland (Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 2, iv. pp. 219-226), entitled Observations upon the Affinities and Analogies of Organized Beings, administered to the theory a shock from which it never recovered, though attempts were now and then made by its adherents to revive it ; and, even ten years or more later, Kaup, one of the few foreign orni- thologists who had embraced Quinary principles, was by mistaken kind- ness allowed to publish Monographs of the Birds-of-Prey (Jardine’s Contr. Orn. 1849, pp. 68-75, 96-121 ; 1850, pp. 51-80; 1851, pp. 119-130 ; 1852, pp. 103-1225 and Trans. Zool. Soc. iv. pp. 201-260), in which its absurdity reached the climax.
The mischief caused by this theory of a Quinary System was very great, but was chiefly confined to Britain, for (as already stated) the extraordinary views of its adherents found little favour on the continent of Europe. The purely artificial character of the System of Linneus and his successors had been perceived, and men were at a loss to find a substitute for it. The new doctrine, loudly proclaiming the discovery of a “Natural” System, led away many from the steady practice which should have followed the teaching of Cuvier (though he in Ornithology had not been able to act up to the principles he had laid down) and from the extended study of Comparative Anatomy. Moreover, it veiled the honest attempts that were making both in France and Germany to find real grounds for establishing an improved state of things, and conse- quently the labours of De Blainville, Etienne Geoffroy St.-Hilaire, and L’Herminier, of Merrem, Johannes Miiller and Nitzsch—to say nothing of others—were almost wholly unknown on this side of the Channel, and even the value of the investigations of British ornithotom- ists of high merit, such as Macartney and Macgillivray, was almost completely overlooked. True it is that there were not wanting other men in these islands whose common sense refused to accept the meta- phorical doctrine and the mystical jargon of the Quinarians, but so strenuously and persistently had the latter asserted their infallibility, and so vigorously had they assailed any who ventured to doubt it, that
INTRODUCTION Bo)
most peaceable ornithologists found it best to bend to the furious blast, and in some sort to acquiesce at least in the phraseology of the self- styled interpreters of Creative Will. But, while thus lamenting this unfortunate perversion into a mistaken channel of ornithological energy, we must not over-blame those who caused it. Macleay indeed never pretended to a high position in this branch of science, his tastes lying in the direction of Entomology ;-but few of their countrymen knew more of Birds than did Swainson and Vigors ; and, while the latter, as editor for many years of the Zoological Journal, and the first Secretary of the Zoological Society, has especial claims to the regard of all zoologists, so the former’s indefatigable pursuit of Natural History, and conscientious labour in its behalf—among other ways by means of his graceful pencil —deserve to be remembered as a set-off against the injury he unwittingly caused,
It is now incumbent upon us to take a rapid survey of the orni-
thological works which come more or less under the designation of “Faun” ;! but these are so numerous that it will be necessary to limit this survey, as before indicated, to those countries alone which form the homes of English people, or are commonly visited by them in ordinary travel. Beginning with our Antipodes, it is hardly needful to go further back than Sir Walter Buller’s beautiful Birds of New Zealand (Ato, 1872-73; ed. 2, 2 vols. 1888), with coloured plates by Mr. Keulemans, and the same author’s Manual of the Birds of New Zealand (8vo, 1882), founded on the former; but justice requires that mention be made of the labours of G. R. Gray, first in the Appendix to Dieffenbach’s Travels in New Zealand (1848) and then in the ornithological portion of the Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Erebus’ and ‘ Terror, begun in 1844, but left unfinished from the following year until completed by Dr. Sharpe in 1876. A considerable number of valuable papers on the Ornithology of the country by Sir James Hector and Sir Julius Von Haast, Prof. Hutton, Mr. Potts and others are to be found in the Trans- actions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute.
Passing to Australia, we have the first good description of some of its Birds in the several old voyages and in Latham’s works before men- tioned. Shaw’s Zoology of New Holland (4to, 1794), though unfinished, - added that of a few more, as did J. W. Lewin’s Birds of New Holland (4to, London : 1808), of which, under the title of A Natural History of the Birds of New South Wales, a second edition, with 26 instead of 18 plates, appeared in 1822, the year after the author’s death, and a third with additions by Eyton, Gould and others in 1838. Gould’s great Dirds of Australia has been already named, and he subsequently repro- duced with some additions the text of that work under the title of Handbook to the Birds of Australia (2 vols. 8vo, 1865). In 1866 Mr. Diggles commenced a similar publication, The Ornithology of Australia, but the coloured plates are not comparable with those of his predecessor. This is still incomplete, though the parts that appeared were collected to
1 A very useful list of more gencral scope is given as the Appendix to an Address by Mr. Sclater to the British Association in 1875 (Report, pt. ii. pp. 114-188).
36 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
form two volumes and issued (Brisbane: 1877) with title-pages. Many notices of Australian Birds by Dr. Ramsay, Messrs. A. J. North, K. H. Bennett and others are to be found in the Records of the Australian Museum, the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, of the Royal Society of Victoria and of that of Tasmania! Papers by Mr. Devis on the ornithology of British New Guinea have appeared in the Annual Reports on that Dependency presented to the parliament of Queensland, and in their original form are hardly accessible to the ordinary ornithologist.
Coming to our Indian possessions, and beginning with Ceylon, we have Kelaart’s Prodromus Faunx Zeylanicxe (8vo, 1852), and the admirable Birds of Ceylon by Col. Legge (4to, 1878-80), with coloured plates by Mr, Keulemans of all the peculiar species. One can hardly name a book that has been more conscientiously executed than this. In regard to continental India many of the more important publications have been named in the body of this work (pages 356, 357), but Blyth’s Mammals and Birds of Burma (8vo, 1875) * should be especially noticed, as well as the fact that since the return of Mr. Oates to the East, the ornithological part of the Fauna of British India is being continued by Mr. Blanford, though Jerdon’s classical work will always remain of value, notwith- standing that it no longer reigns supreme as the sole comprehensive work on the Ornithology of the Peninsula.?
In regard to South Africa there is little to be added to the works mentioned (pages 347, 351, 352); but in 1896 Capt. Shelley brought out a List of African Birds, which, it is hoped, may be the forerunner of a series of volumes on Ethiopian Ornithology. It is much to be regretted that of the numerous sporting books that treat of this part of the world so few give any important information respecting the Birds,
Of special works relating to the British West Indies, Waterton’s well-known JVanderings has passed through several editions since its first appearance in 1825, and must be mentioned here, though, strictly speaking, much of the country he traversed was not British territory. To Dr. Cabanis we are indebted for the ornithological results of Richard Schomburgk’s researches given in the third volume (pp. 662-765) of the latter’s Reisen im Britisch-Guiana (8vo, 1848), and then to Léotaud’s Oiseaux de Vile de la Trinidad (8vo, 1866). Of the Antilles there is to be named Gosse’s excellent Birds of Jamaica (12mo0, 1847), together with its Illustrations (sm. fol. 1849) beautifully executed by him. A nominal
1 Dr. Ramsay hasa Tabular List of Australian Birds (ed. 2, Sydney: 1888). Mr. North’s contributions have been chiefly on Nidification and Oology, though the ornithology of the recent ‘ Horn Expedition” has fallen to his share. Mr. Archibald J. Campbell's Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds (Melbourne: 1883) deserves especial mention. A convenient Manual of Australian Ornithology is still a great want, and, if supplied, would undoubtedly advance the knowledge of the wonderful bird-population of that country, and induce the inhabitants to take greater interest in it. But the work to be well done must be by Australian hands.
* This is a posthumous publication, nominally forming an extra number of the Journal of the Asiatic Society.
3 A multitude of papers, some very important, on Indian Ornithology, appeared in Stray Feathers, a periodical edited between 1877 and 1882 by Mr. A. O. Hume, of which the eleventh and last volume remains unfinished.
INTRODUCTION 37
list, with references, of the Birds of the island is contained in the Handbook of Jamaica for 1881 (pp. 103-117) ; while in 1885 Mr. Cory,! who in 1880 had brought out, at Boston (ed. 2, 1890), a work on the Birds of the Bahama Islands (not strictly Antillean), published a List of the Birds of the West Indies, with a revised edition in the following year, and one still more elaborate, so that the words “List of ” were dropped from the title, in 1889.
So admirable a “‘List of Faunal Publications relating to North American Ornithology” up to the year 1878 has been given by Dr. Coues as an appendix to his Birds of the Colorado Valley (pp. 567-784) that nothing more of the kind is wanted except to notice some of the chief separate works which have since appeared, for so prolific are our American relations that it would be impossible to mention many. Among those that cannot be overlooked are Mr. Stearns’s New England Bird Life (2 vols. 8vo, 1881-83), revised by Dr. Coues, and the several editions of his own Check List of North American Birds (1882), and Key to North American Birds.2 Then there is the great North American Birds of the late Prof. Baird, Dr. Brewer and Mr. Ridgway (1874-84), and the Manual of North American Birds (1887; ed. 2, 1896) by the last of these authors; beside Capt. Bendire’s Life Histories of North American Birds (4to, Washington: 1892), beautifully illustrated by figures of their eggs. Yet some of the older works are still of sufficient importance to be especially recorded here, and especially that of Alexander Wilson, whose American Ornithology, originally published between 1808 and 1814, has gone through many editions, of which mention should be made of those issued in Great Britain by Jameson (4 vols. 16mo, 1831), and Jardine (3 vols. 8vo, 1832). The former of these has the entire text, but no plates ; the latter reproduces the plates, but the text is in places much condensed, though excellent notes are added. A continuation of Wilson’s work, under the same title and on the same plan, was issued by Bonaparte between 1825 and 1833, and most of the later editions include the work of both authors. The works of Audubon, with their continuations by Cassin and Mr. Elliot, and the Fauna Boreali-Americana
1 In the same year Mr. Cory also produced the Birds of Haiti and St. Domingo, supplying a want that had been long felt, since nothing had really been known of the ornithology of Hispaniola for nearly a century. Gundlach, Lembeye and Poey are the chief authorities on that of Cuba, while the first has also treated of the Birds of Porto Rico.
2 The second and revised edition (the first having appeared in 1872, while a fifth is now in preparation) of this useful work was published in 1884, and contains (pp. 234, 235) a classification of North-American Birds, though being limited to them will not need detailed notice hereafter; but I may remark that the author very justly points out (p. 227) the difference, overlooked by many writers of to-day, between “natural analysis” and the “artificial keys” now so much in vogue, the latter being merely “an attempt to take the student by a ‘short cut’ to the name and position in the ornithological system of any specimen” he may wish to determine. Under the title of Handbook of Field and General Ornithology, the two portions of this work most valuable to the non-American reader were republished in London in 1890, and deserve to be far better known among the ornithologists of all countries than they seem to be, for they give much excellent information not to be found elsewhere. Many writers on Birds in newspapers and magazines would be often spared some silly mistakes were they to make acquaintance with Dr. Coues’s little book.
358 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
of Richardson and Swainson have already been noticed ; but they need naming here, as also does Nuttall’s Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada (2 vols. 1832-34; vol. i. ed. 2, 1840); the Birds of Long Island (8vo, 1844) by Giraud, remarkable for its excellent account of the habits of shore-birds ; and of course the Birds of North America (4to, 1858) by Baird, with the co-operation of Cassin and Lawrence, which originally formed a volume (ix.) of what are known as the “ Pacific Railroad Reports.” Apart from these special works the scientific journals of Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Washington contain innumerable papers on the Ornithology of the country, while in 1876 the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club began to appear, and continued until 1884, when it was superseded by The Auk, established solely for the promotion of Ornithology in America, and numbering among its supporters almost every American ornithologist of repute, its present editors being Dr. Allen and Mr. F. M. Chapman.
Of Canada, unfortunately, not much is to be said. It is hard to under- stand why zoological studies have never found such favour there as further to the southward, but this is undoubtedly the fact, and no ornithological work can be cited of which the Dominion as a whole can be proud, though Mr. M‘Ilwraithe’s Birds of Ontario, of which an enlarged edition appeared in 1894, is a fair piece of local work.
Returning to the Old World, among the countries whose Ornithology will most interest British readers we have first Iceland, the fullest— indeed the only full—account of the Birds of which is Faber’s Prodromus der isliindischen Ornithologie (8vo, 1822), though the island has since been visited by several good ornithologists, Proctor, Kriiper and Wolley among them. A list of its Birds, with some notes, bibliographical and biological, has been given as an Appendix to Mr. Baring-Gould’s Iceland, ats Scenes and Sagas (8vo, 1862); and Mr. Shepherd’s North-west Peninsula of Iceland (8vo, 1867) recounts a somewhat profitless expedition made thither expressly for ornithological objects.1_ For the Birds of the Feroes there is Herr H. C. Miiller’s Peréernes Fuglefauwna (8vo, 1862), of which a German translation has appeared.2 The Ornithology of Norway has been treated in a great many papers by Herr Collett, some of which may be said to have been separately published as Norges Fugle (8vo, 1868 ; with a supplement, 1871), and The Ornithology of Northern Norway (8vo, 1872)—this last in English, while an English translation by Mr. A. H. Cocks (London : 1894) has been published of one of the author’s latest works, a popular account of Bird-Life in Arctic Norway, communicated to the Second International Congress of Ornithology in 1892. For Scandi- navia generally the latest work is Herr Collin’s Skandinaviens Fugle (8vo,
1 Two papers by Messrs. Backhouse and W. E. Clarke, and Carter and Slater (Ibis, 1885, p. 864; 1886, p. 45) should be consulted, as well as one by Messrs. H. J. and C. E. Pearson (op. cit. 1895, pp. 287-249), which gives a list of the species hitherto recorded there. Herr Gréndal has also a list and an ornithological report on a (Ornis, 1886, pp. 355, 601), with a dissertation on birds’ names (op. cit. 1887, p. :
2 Journ. fiir Orn. 1869, pp. 107, 341, 381. One may almost say an English translation also, for Col. Feilden’s contribution to the Zoologist for 1872 on the same subject gives the most essential part of Herr Miiller’s information.
INTRODUCTION 39
1873), being a greatly bettered edition of the very moderate Danmarks Fugle of Kjzrbolling ; but the ornithological portion of Nilsson’s Skandi navisk Fauna, Foglarna (3rd ed. 2 vols. Svo, 1858) is of great merit ; while the text of Sundevall’s Svenska Foglarna (obl. fol. 1856-73), un- fortunately unfinished at his death, but completed in 1886 by Prof. Kinberg, and Herr Holmgren’s Skandinaviens Foglar (2 vols. 8vo, 1866- 75) deserve naming.
Works on the Birds of Germany are far too numerous to be recounted. That of the two Naumanns, already mentioned, and yet again to be spoken of, stands at the head of all, and perhaps at the head of the “Faunal” works of all countries. For want of space it must here suffice simply to name some of the ornithologists who in this century have elaborated, to an extent elsewhere unknown, the science as regards their own country : —Altum, Baldamus, Bechstein, Berlepsch, Blasius (father and two sons), Bolle, Borggreve, whose Vogel-Fauna von Norddeutschland (8vo, 1869) contains what is practically a bibliographical index to the subject, Brehm (father and sons), Von Droste, Gitke, Gloger, Hintz, Holtz, Alexander and Eugen von Homeyer, Jiackel, Koch, K6énig-Warthausen, Kriiper, Kutter, Landbeck, Landois, Leisler, Leverkiihn, Von Maltzan, Matschie, Bernard Meyer, Von der Miihle, Neumann, Tobias, Johann Wolf and Zander.! Were we to extend the list beyond the boundaries of the German empire, and include the ornithologists of Austria, Bohemia and the other states subject to the same monarch, the number would be nearly doubled ; but that would overpass our proposed limits, though Von Pelzeln must be named.? Passing onward to Switzerland, we must con- tent ourselves by referring to the list of works, forming a bibliographia Ornithologica Helvetica, drawn up by Dr. Stélker for Dr. Fatio’s Bulletin de la Société Ornithologique Suisse (ii. pp. 90-119); but the latter has already published a Catalogue Distributif of Swiss Birds, of which a third edition appeared in 1892, and in conjunction with Dr. Studer is bringing out a more elaborate work on the ornithology of the country, of which two parts have appeared. As to Italy, we have to name here the Fauna dItalia, of which the second part, Uccelli (8vo, 1872), by Count T. Salvadori, contained an excellent bibliography of Italian works on the subject, while his Elenco degli Uccellt Italiani (Genova: 1887) is drawn up with his characteristic thoroughness. Then there is the posthumously published Ornitologia Italiana of Savi (3 vols, 8vo, 1873-77). But the country rejoices in what may be called an official Ornithology. This is the Avifauna Italica of Prof. Giglioli, and consists of four volumes pub-
1 This is of course no complete list of German ornithologists. Some of the most eminent cf them have written scarcely a line on the Birds of their own country, as Cabanis (editor from 1853 to 1898 of the Journal fiir Ornithologie), Finsch, Hartlaub, Hartert, Heine, A. Kénig, Prince Max of Wied, A. B. Meyer, Nathusius, Nehrkorn, Reichenbach and Schalow among others. In 1889 Dr. Reichenow, of whom more hereafter, published a convenient Systematisches Verzeichniss der Vigel Deutschlands und des angrenzenden Mittel-Europas.
2 An ornithological bibliography of the Austrian-Hungarian dominions was printed in the Verhandlungen of the Zoological and Botanical Society of Vienna for 1878, by Victor Ritter von Tschusi zu Schmidhofen. A similar bibliography of Russian Ornithology by Alexander Brandt was printed at St. Petersburg in 1877 or 1878.
4O DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
lished at Florence between 1886 and 1891, in which the subject is treated in the greatest detail, owing to the multitude of observers by whom the author was assisted, with the result that Ornithology stands in Italy on a footing different from that which it occupies in any other nation. But it is pleasing to observe that this official recognition has not checked inde- pendent work, and the number of local Italian faunas is far too great to be here particularized.!. Coming to the Iberian peninsula, we must in default of separate works depart from our rule of not mentioning contribu- tions to journals, for of the former there are only Col. Irby’s Ornithology of the Straits of Gibraltar (8vo, 1875 ; ed. 2, 1895)? and Mr. A. C. Smith’s Spring Tour in Portugal® to be named, and these but partially cover the ground. However, Dr. A. E. Brehm has published a list of Spanish Birds (Allgem. deutsche Naturhist. Zeitung, iii. p. 431), and The Ibis contains several excellent papers by Lord Lilford and by Mr. Saunders, the latter of whom there records (1871, p. 55) the few works on Ornithology by Spanish authors, and in the Bulletin de la Société Zoologique de France (i. p. 315; ii. pp. 11, 89, 185) has given a list of the Spanish Birds known to him.4
Returning northwards, we have of the Birds of the whole of France, apart from Western Europe, nothing of real importance more recent than the Oiseaux in Vieillot’s Faune Francaise (8vo, 1822-29) ; but there is a great number of local publications of which Mr. Saunders has furnished (Zoologist, 1878, pp. 95-99) a catalogue. Some of these have appeared in journals, but many have been issued separately. - Those of most interest to English ornithologists naturally refer to Britanny, Normandy and Picardy, and are by Baillon, Benoist, Blandin, Bureau, Canivet, Chesnon, Degland, Demarle, De Norguet, Gentil, Hardy, Lemetteil, Lemonnicier, Lesauvage, Maignon, Marcotte, Nourry and Taslé, while perhaps the Ornt- thologie Parisienne of M. René Paquet, under the pseudonym of Nérée Quépat, should also be named. Of the rest the most important are the Ornithologve Provengale of Roux (2 vols. 4to, 1825-29); Risso’s Histoire naturelle . . . . des environs de Nice (5 vols. 8vo, 1826-27); the Orni- thologie du Dauphiné of Bouteille and Labatie (2 vols. 8vo, 1843-44); the Ornithologie du Gard (8vo, 1840) and Faune Meridionale of Crespon (2 vols. 8vo, 1844); the Ornithologie de la Savoie of Bailly (4 vols. 8vo, 1853-54), and Les kichesses ornithologiques du midi de la France (4to, 1859-61) of MM. Jaubert and Barthélemy-Lapommeraye. For Belgium the Faune Belge of Baron De Selys-Longchamps (8vo, 1842) long remained the
' A compendium of Greek and Turkish Ornithology by Drs. Kriiper and Hartlaub is contained in Mommsen’s G@riechische Jahrzeiten for 1875 (Heft III.). For other countries in the Levant there are Canon Tristram’s Fauna and Flora of Palestine (4to, 1884) and Capt. Shelley’s Handbook to the Birds of Egypt (8vo, 1872).
* Mr. Abel Chapman’s Wild Spain (London: 1893) contains a considerable quantity of ornithological information, chiefly from the sportsman’s point of view.
3 In the final chapter of this work the author gives a list of Portuguese Birds, including beside those observed by him those recorded by Prof. Barboza du Bocage in the Gazeta Medica de Lisboa, 1861, pp. 17-21.
4 Certain papers published at Corunna by a Galician ornithologist require an explanation (cf. Sherborn, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 6, xiv. p. 154), which has uot and probably never will be given.
INTRODUCTION Gl
classical work, though the Planches coloriées des Oiseaua de la Belgique of the late M. Ch. F. Dubois (8vo, 1851-60) was so much more recent. To this followed, in 1861-64, a supplementary volume, which, by including species not found in Belgium, justified an extension of the title of the whole to Planches coloriges des Oiseaux de ? Europe; while between 1876 and 1887, his son, Dr. Alphonse Dubois, devoted to Birds four volumes of his Faune illustree des Vertébrés de la Belgique (gr. 8vo), a work remark- able for the introduction of small maps shewing the author’s view of the geographical range of the several species. In regard to Holland we have Schlegel’s De Vogels van Nederland (3 vols. 8vo, 1854-58; ed. 2, 2 vols. 1878), besides his De Dieren van Nederland: Vogels (8vo, 1861).1
Here it may be well to cast a glance on a few of the works that refer to Europe in general, the more so since most of them are of Continental origin. First we have the already-mentioned Manuel d’Ornithologie of Temminck, which originally appeared as a single volume in 1815 ? ; but was speedily superseded by the second edition of 1820, in two volumes, Two supplementary parts were issued in 1835 and 1840 respectively, and the work for many years deservedly maintained the highest position as the authority on European Ornithology—indeed in England it may almost without exaggeration be said to have been nearly the only foreign ornithological work known ; but, as may well be expected, grave defects are now to be discovered in it. Some of them were already manifest when one of its author’s colleagues, Schlegel (who had been employed to write the text for Susemihl’s plates, originally intended to illustrate Temminck’s work), brought out his bilingual Revue critique des Oiseaux @ Europe (8vo, 1844), a very remarkable volume, since it correlated and consolidated the labours of French and German, to say nothing of Russian, ornithologists. Of Gould’s Birds of Europe (5 vols. fol. 1832-37) nothing need be added to what has been already said. The year 1849 saw the publication of Degland’s Ornithologie Européenne (2 vols, 8vo), a work fully intended to take the place of Temminck’s ; but of which Bonaparte, in a caustic but well-deserved Revue Critique (12mo, 1850), said that the author had performed a miracle since he had worked without a collection of specimens and without a library, A second edition, revised by M. ' Gerbe (2 vols. 8vo, 1867), strove to remedy, and to some extent did remedy, the grosser errors of the first, but enough still remain to make few statements in the work trustworthy unless corroborated by other evidence. Meanwhile in England the late Dr. Bree in 1858 began the publication of The Birds of Europe not observed in the British Isles (4 vols. 8vo), which was completed in 1863, and in 1875 reached a second and improved edition (5 vols.). In 1870-1 Dr. Anton Fritsch brought out his Naturgeschichte der Vogel Europas (8vo, with atlas in folio) ; and in 1871 Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser began the publication of their birds of Europe, which was finished by the latter alone in 1879 (8 vols. 4to), and is unques- tionably the most complete work of its kind, both for fulness of informa- tion and beauty of illustration—the coloured plates being nearly all by Mr.
1 There are several important papers on Dutch Ornithology by Albarda, Blaauw,
Biittikofer, Crommelin, Jentink and others. 2 Copies are said to exist bearing the date 1814.
42 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
Keulemans or Mr. Neale. In so huge an undertaking mistakes and omis- sions are of course to be found if any one likes the invidious task of seeking for them; but many of the errors imputed to this work prove on investi- gation to refer to matters of opinion rather than of fact, while many more are explicable if we remember that while the work was in progress Ornithology was being prosecuted with unprecedented activity, and thus statements which were in accordance with the best information at the beginning of the period were found to need modification before it was ended. As a whole European ornithologists have been all but unanimously grateful to Mr. Dresser for the way in which he brought this enormous labour to a successful end. A Supplement to his work is now nearly finished. The late M. des Murs in 1886 completed his Description des Oiseaux d Europe (4 vols. gr. 8vo), with coloured figures of the Birds and of their eggs, but it is rather a popular than a scientific work. The Contributions a la Fawne ornithologique de ? Europe Occidentale of the late M. Olphe-Galliard, contained in 41 fascicules between 1884 and 1892, is an important work, involving a vast amount of research, and composed in a highly original way. The author was well read in orni- thological literature, for he had the accomplishment, rare among his countrymen, of a good acquaintance with modern languages not his own, and was especially observant of the doings of foreign naturalists. Yet the work cannot be called wholly successful, and this chiefly, it would seem, through the want of autoptical acquaintance with many of the species treated, or at least with a sufficient series of specimens, whereby he has been led to rely too much on the descriptions of others, with the usual unsatisfactory result. Still the work fully deserves attention, and nothing need be said of the author’s fanciful classification, for no one is likely to follow it. In 1890 Mr. Backhouse brought out a convenient little Handbook of European Birds.4
Coming now to works on British Birds only, the first of the present century that requires remark is Montagu’s Ornithological Dictionary (2 vols. 8vo, 1802; supplement 1813), the merits of which have been so long and so fully acknowledged both abroad and at home that no further comment is here wanted. In 1881 Rennie brought out a modified edition of it (reissued in 1833), and Newman another in 1866 (reissued in 1883); but those who wish to know the author’s views should consult the original. Next in order come the very inferior British Ornithology of Graves (3 vols. 8vo, 1811-21; ed. 2, 1821), and a better work with the same title by Hunt? (3 vols. 8vo, 1815-22), published at Norwich, but never finished. Then we have Selby’s Jllustrations of British Ornithology, two folio volumes of coloured plates engraved by himself, between 1821 and 1833, with letterpress also in two volumes (8vo, 1825-33), a second
1 Herr Giitke’s remarkable Vogelwarte Helgoland (Braunschweig: 1891), which treats of much more than European ornithology, has been elsewhere (MIGRATION, p. 562) mentioned. It remains to say that a fair English translation by Mr. Rosenstock, with a preface by Mr. Harvie-Brown, has appeared under the title of Heligoland as an Ornithological Observatory (Edinburgh: 1895).
* The text was written, I was told by the late Mr. Joseph Clarke, by R. C.
Coxe, who was a schoolboy when it was begun, but died in 1863 Archdeacon of Lindisfarne,
INTRODUCTION 3
edition of the first volume being also issued (1833), for the author, having yielded to the pressure of the “Quinarian” doctrines then in vogue, thought it necessary to adjust his classification accordingly, and it must be admitted that for information the second edition is best. In 1828 Fleming brought out his History of British Animals (8vo), in which the Birds are treated at considerable length (pp. 41-146), though not with great success. In 1835 Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) produced an excellent Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, a volume (8vo) executed with great scientific skill, the Birds again receiving due attention (pp. 49-286), and the descriptions of the various species being as accurate as they are terse! In the same year began the Colowred LIIllustrations of British Birds and their Eggs of H. L. Meyer (4to), which was completed in 1843, whereof a second edition (7 vols. 8vo, 1842-50) was brought out, and subsequently (1852-57) a reissue of the latter. In 1836 appeared Eyton’s History of the rarer British Birds, intended as a sequel to Bewick’s well-known volumes, to which no important additions had been made since the issue of 1821. The year 1837 saw the beginning of two remarkable works by Macgillivray and Yarrell respectively, and each entituled A History of British Birds. Of the first, undoubtedly the more original and in many respects the more minutely accurate, mention will again have to be made, and, save to state that its five volumes were not completed till 1852, nothing more needs now to be added. The second unquestionably became the standard work on British Ornithology, a fact due in part to its numerous illustrations, many of them indeed ill drawn, though all carefully engraved, but much more to the breadth of the author’s views and the judgment with which they were set forth. In practical acquaintance with the internal structure of Birds, and in the perception of its importance in classification, he was certainly not behind his rival; but he well knew that his public in a Book of Birds not only did not want a series of anatomical treatises, but would even resent their introduction. He had the art to conceal his art, and his work was there- fore a success, while the other was unhappily a failure. Yet with all his knowledge he was deficient in some of the qualities which a great naturalist ought to possess. His conception of what his work should be seems to have been perfect, his execution was not equal to the conception. However, he was not the first nor will he be the last to fall short in this respect. For him it must be said that, whatever may have been done by the generation of British ornithologists now becoming advanced in life, he educated them to do it; nay, his influence even extends to a younger generation still, though they may hardly be aware of it. Of Yarrell’s work in three volumes, a second edition was published in 1845, a third in 1856, and a fourth, begun in 1871, and almost wholly rewritten, was finished in 1885 by Mr. Saunders, who in 1888 and 1889, carrying out the suggestion of a brother ornithologist, skilfully condensed the whole into a single volume, forming a useful Manual of British Birds, illustrated by the same figures as the larger work. Of other compilations based upon it, without which they could not have been composed, there is no need to
1 A series of MS. notes which he gave to the Cambridge Museum shews that he was largely aided by his brother-in-law Henslow, the botanist.
4d4 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
speak.! One of the few appearing since, with the same scope, that are not borrowed is Jardine’s Birds of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols. 8vo, 1838-43), forming part of his Naturalist’s Library; and Gould’s Birds of Great Britain has been already mentioned.2 Two imposing folios, with very good plates by Mr. Keulemans, were issued with the title of Rough Notes on Birds in the British Islands during 1881 to 1887, by the late Mr. Booth (whose “ Museum” is one of the popular sights of Brighton), and contain a great number of personal observations, though few of any novelty or value, while as a record of butchery the work fortunately stands alone. Lord Lilford’s Colowred Figures of the Birds of the British Islands, begun in 1885 and now nearly completed, has given great pleasure to many lovers of Birds, by whom such a series of plates was strongly desired, for they are generally good, and some of the latest, by Mr. Thorburn, are exquisite.
The good effects of “‘ Faunal” works such as those named in the fore- going rapid survey none can doubt. ‘Every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer,” wrote Gilbert White, and experience has proved the truth of his assertion. It is from the labours of mono-
1 Yet two of them have attained great popularity, and have exerted such an in- fluence in this country, that as a matter of history their authors, both deceased, must here be named, though I would willingly pass them over, for I have not a word to say in favour of either. By every well-informed ornithologist the History of British Birds of Mr. Morris has long been known to possess no authority ; but about Mr. Seebohm’s volumes with the same title there is much difference of opinion, some hold- ing them in high esteem. The greater part of their text, when it is correct, will be found on examination to be a paraphrase of what others had already written, for even the information given on the author’s personal experience, which was doubtless considerable, extends little or no further. But all this is kept studiously out of sight, and the whole is so skilfully dressed as to make the stalest observations seem novel —a merit, I am assured, in some eyes. Of downright errors and wild conjectures there are enough, and they are confidently asserted with the misuse of language and absence of reasoning power that mark all the author’s writings, though the air of scientitic treatment assumed throughout has deluded many an unwary reader.
* Though contravening our plan, we must for its great merits notice here the late Mr. More’s series of papers in The Ibis for 1865, “On the Distribution of Birds in Great Britain during the Nesting Season.”
* Local ornithologies are far too numerous to be named at length. Fortunately Mr. Christy has published a Catalogue of them (Zool. 1890, pp. 247-267, and separately, London: 1891), and only a few of the most remarkable and the most recent need here be mentioned. The first three volumes of Thompson’s Natural History of Ireland (1849-51) cannot be passed over, as containing an excellent account, to equal which no approach has since been made, of the Birds of that country, though there are many important papers by later Irish ornithologists, as Messrs. Barrett-Hamilton, Blake-Knox, H. L. Jameson, R. Paterson, Ussher and Warren, and conspicuously by Mr. Barrington. For North Britain, Robert Gray’s Birds of the West of Scotland (1871), and the series of district Vertebrate Faunas, begun by Messrs. Harvie-Brown and T. E. Buckley, of which 7 volumes have now appeared— treating of (1) Sutherland, Caithness and West Cromarty, (2) Outer Hebrides, (3) Argyll and Inner Hebrides, (4) Iona and Mull (this by Graham), (5) Orkney and (6 and 7) Moray—while others, as Dee and Shetland, are in progress, calls for especial remark, as does Mr. Muirhead’s Birds of Berwickshire (2 vols. 1889-96) ; but for want of space many meritorious papers in journals, by Alston, Dalgleish, W. Evans, Lumsden and others must here be unnoticed. The local works on English Birds are still more numerous, but among them may be especially named the oldest of all, Tucker’s unfinished Orni- thologia Danmoniensis (4to, 1809), an ambitious work of which not even the whole of
INTRODUCTION 45
graphers of this kind, but on a more extended scale, when brought together, that the valuable results follow which inform us as to GroGRAPHICAL DistRisurion. Important as they are, they do not of themselves con- stitute Ornithology as a science; and an enquiry, no less wide and far more recondite, still remains—that having for its object the discovery of the natural groups of Birds, and the mutual relations of those groups, which has always been of the deepest interest, and to it we must now recur.
But nearly all the authors above named, it will have been seen, trod the same ancient paths, and in the works of scarcely one of them had any new spark of intelligence been struck out to enlighten the gloom which surrounded the investigator. It is now for us to trace the rise of the present more advanced school of ornithologists whose labours, pre- liminary as we must still regard them to be, yet give signs of far greater promise. It would probably be unsafe to place its origin further back than a few scattered hints contained in the ‘ Pterographische Fragmente’ of Christian Ludwig Nitzsch, published in the Magazin fiir den neuesten Zustand der Naturkuinde (edited by Voigt) for May 1806 (xi. pp. 393-417), and even these might be left to pass unnoticed, were it not that we recog- nize in them the germ of the great work which the same admirable zoologist subsequently accomplished. In these “ Fragments,” apparently his earliest productions, we find him engaged on the subject with which his name will always be especially identified, the structure and arrange- ment of the feathers that form the proverbial characteristic of Birds. But, though the observations set forth in this essay were sufficiently novel, there is not much in them that at the time would have attracted attention, for perhaps no one—not even the author himself—could have then foreseen to what important end they would, in conjunction with other investigations, lead future naturalists ; but they are marked by the close and patient determination that eminently distinguishes all the work of their author ; and, since it will be necessary for us to return to this
the somewhat turgid Introduction was published ; but the two parts printed shew the author to have been a physiologist, anatomist and outdoor-observer far beyond most men of his time, beside being of a philosophical turn, well acquainted with literature, and an agreeable writer. At a long interval follow Dillwyn’s Fauna and Flora of Swansea (1848) ; Knox’s Ornithological Rambles in Sussex (1849); Mr. Harting’s Birds of Middlesex (1866) ; Stevenson’s Birds of Norfolk (3 vols. 1866-90, completed by Mr. Southwell) ; Cecil Smith’s Birds of Somerset (1869) and of Guernsey (1879) ; Mr. Cordeaux’s Birds of the Humber District (1872) ; Hancock’s Birds of Northumber- land and Durham (1874); The Birds of Nottinghamshire by Messrs. Sterland and Whitaker (1879) ; Rodd’s Birds of Cornwall, edited by Mr. Harting (1880); the Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire (1881), in which the Birds are by Mr. W. E. Clarke ; Churchill Babington’s Birds of Suffolk (1884-6); and Mr. A. C. Smith’s Birds of Wiltshire (1887). Since the publication of Mr. Christy’s Catalogue a few more have to be briefly mentioned, and first his own volume on the Birds of Hssex (1890), while those of Sussex were treated in 1891 by Mr. Borrer ; Worcestershire (1891) by Mr. Willis Bund; Devonshire (1891) by Mr. Pidsley and (1892) by Messrs. D’Urban and Mathew (Suppl. and ed. 2, 1895); Lakeland (1892) by Mr. H. A. Macpherson ; Lancashire (ed. 2, 1893) by Mr. F. S. Mitchell ; Zondon (1893) by Mr. Swann ; Derbyshire (1893) by Mr. Whitlock, and finally Northamptonshire (2 vols. 1895) by Lord Lilford. The papers in journals are countless, but almost all up to the time of compilation are contained in the excellent List of Kaunal Publications relating to British Birds, published in 1880 by Dr. Coues (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. ii. pp. 359-482),
é
$6 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
part of the subject later, there is here no need to say more of them. In the following year another set of hints—of a kind so different that probably no one then living would have thought it possible that they should ever be brought in correlation with those of Nitzsch—are con- tained in a memoir on Fishes contributed to the tenth volume of the Annales du Muséum @histoire naturelle of Paris by Etienne Geoffroy St.- Hilaire in 1807.1 Here we have it stated as a general truth (p. 100) that young birds have the sternum formed of five separate pieces—one in the middle, being its keel, and two “annexes” on each side to which the ribs are articulated—all, however, finally uniting to form the single “breast-bone.” Further on (pp. 101, 102) we find observations as to the number of ribs which are attached to each of the “annexes”—there being sometimes more of them articulated to the anterior than to the posterior, and in certain forms no ribs belonging to ‘one, all being applied to the other. Moreover, the author goes on to remark that in adult birds trace of the origin of the sternum from five centres of ossification is always more or less indicated by sutures, and that, though these sutures had been generally regarded as ridges for the attachment of the sternal muscles, they indeed mark the extreme points of the five primary bony pieces of the sternum.
In 1810 appeared at Heidelberg the first volume of Tiedemann’s carefully-wrought Anatomie und Naturgeschichte der Végel—which shews a remarkable advance upon the work which Cuvier did in 1805, and in some respects is superior to his later production of 1817. It is, however, only noticed here on account of the numerous references made to it by succeeding writers, for neither in this nor in the author’s second volume (not published until 1814) did he propound any systematic arrangement of the Class. More germane to our present subject are the Osteographische Beitriige zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel of Nitzsch, printed at Leipzig in 1811—a miscellaneous set of detached essays on some peculiarities of the skeleton or portions of the skeleton of certain Birds—one of the most remarkable of which is that on the component parts of the foot (pp. 101-105) pointing out the aberration from the ordinary structure exhibited by Caprimulgus (NiauHTsaRr) and Cypselus (SwIrt)—an aberration which, if rightly understood, would have conveyed a warning to these orni- thological systematists who put their trust in Birds’ toes for characters on which to erect a classification, that there was in them much more of importance, hidden beneath the integument, than had hitherto been suspected ; but the warning was of little avail, if any, till many years had elapsed. However, Nitzsch had not as yet seen his way to proposing any methodical arrangement of the various groups of Birds, and it was not until some eighteen months later that a scheme of classification in the main anatomical was attempted.
This scheme was the work of Blasius Merrem, who, in a communica- tion to the Academy of Sciences of Berlin on the 10th December 1812, and published in its Abhandlungen for the following year (pp. 237-259),
ie In the Philosophie Anatomique (i. pp. 69-101, and especially pp. 135, 136), which appeared in 1818, Geoffroy St.-Hilaire explained the views he had adopted at greater length,
INTRODUCTION 27
set forth a Tentamen Systematis naturalis Aviwm, no less modestly entitled than modestly executed. The attempt of Merrem must be regarded as the virtual starting-point of the more recent efforts in Systematic Ornithology, and in that view its proposals deserve to be stated at length. Some of its details, as is only natural, cannot be sustained with our present knowledge, resulting from the information accumulated by various investigators through- out more than eighty years ; but it is certainly not too much to say that Merrem’s merits are incomparably superior to those of any of his pre- decessors as well as to those of the majority of his successors for a long time to come ; while the neglect of his treatise by many (until of late it ‘would not be erroneous to say by most) of those who have since written on the subject seems inexcusable save on the score of inadvertence. Premising then that the chief characters assigned by this ill-appreciated systematist to his several groups are drawn from almost all parts of the structure of Birds, and are supplemented by some others of their more prominent peculiarities, we present the following abstract of his scheme : 1—
I, AVES CARINATA. 1, Aves aerez. A. Rapaces.—a. Accipitres—Vultur, Falco, Sagittarius. 5s SETI. B. Hymenopodes. —a. Chelidones : a. C. nocturne—Caprimulgus. B. C. diurne—Hirundo. 6. Oscines : a. O. conirostres—Lowxia, Fringilla, Emberiza, Tan- gara. 8. O. tenuirostres— Alauda, Motacilla, Muscicapa, Todus, Lanius, Ampelis, Turdus, Paradisea, Buphaga, Sturnus, Oriolus, Gracula, Coracias, Corvus, Pipra*, Parus, Sitta, Certhie quedam. Mellisuge.—Trochilus, Certhie# et Upupe plurime. . Dendrocolapte.— Picus, Yuna. Brevilingues.—a. Upupa; 6. Ispide. . Levirostres.—a. Ramphastus, Scythrops?; b. Psittacus. . Coceyges.—Cuculus, Trogon, Bucco, Crotophaga. 2. Aves terrestres. A. Columba. B. Galline. 3. Aves aquatice. A. Odontorhynchi: a. Boscades—Anas ; 6. Mergus ; c. Pheenicopterus. B. Platyrhynchi.—Pelicanus, Phaeton, Plotus. C. Aptenodytes. D. Urinatrices: a. Cepphi— Alca, Colymbi pedibus palmatis; 6. Podiceps, Colymbt pedibus lobatis. E. Stenorhynchi.—Procellaria, Diomedea, Larus, Sterna, Rhynchops. 4, Aves palustres. A. Rusticole : a. Phalarides—Rallus, Fulica, Parra; b. Limosuge— Numenius, Scolopax, Tringa, Charadrius, Recurvirostra. B. Gralle: a. Erodii—Ardew ungue intermedio serrato, Cancroma ; b. Pelargi —Ciconia, Mycteria, Tantali quidam, Scopus, Platalea; c. Gerani—- Ardex cristate, Grues, Psophia. C. Otis. II. Aves RATITE.—Struthio.
ArBYA
1 The names of the genera are, he tells us, for the most part those of Linneus, as being the best-known, though not the best. To some of the Linnean genera he
gS DICTIONARY OF B/7eDS
The most novel feature, and one the importance of which most ornithologists of the present day are fully prepared to admit, is of course the separation of the Class Aves into two great Divisions, which from one of the most obvious distinctions they present were called by its author Carinate1 and Ratitx,? according as the sternum possesses a keel or not. But Merrem, who subsequently communicated to the Academy of Berlin a more detailed memoir on the “ flat-breasted” Birds,? was careful not here to rest his Divisions on the presence or absence of their sternal character alone. He concisely cites (p. 238) no fewer than eight other characters of more or less value as peculiar to the Carinate Division, the . first of which is that the feathers have their barbs furnished with hooks, in consequence of which the barbs, including those of the wing-quills, cling closely together; while among the rest may be mentioned the position of the furcula and coracoids,* which keep the wing-bones apart ; the limitation of the number of the lumbar vertebre to fifteen, and of the carpals to two; as well as the divergent direction of the iliac bones,—the corresponding characters peculiar to the Ratite Division being (p. 259) the disconnected condition of the barbs of the feathers, through the absence of any hooks whereby they might cohere ; the non-existence of the furcula, and the coalescence of the coracoids with the scapulz (or, as he expressed it, the extension of the scapule to supply the place of the coracoids, which he thought were wanting); the lumbar vertebre being twenty and the carpals three in number ; and the parallelism of the iliac bones.
As for Merrem’s partitioning of the inferior groups there is less to be said in its praise as a whole, though credit must be given to his anatomical knowledge for leading him to the perception of several affinities, as well as differences, that had never before been suggested by superficial systematists. But it must be confessed that (chiefly, no doubt, from paucity of accessible material) he overlooked many points, both of alliance and the opposite, which since his time have gradually come to be admitted. For instance, he seems not to have been aware of the dis- tinction, already shewn by Nitzsch (as above mentioned) to exist, between the Swallows and the Swifts; and, by putting the genus Coracias among his Oscines Tenutrostres® without any remark, proved that he was not in all respects greatly in advance of his age; but on the other hand he most righteously judged that some species hitherto referred to the genera Certhia and Upupa required removal to other positions, and it is much to dare not, however, assign a place, for instance, Buceros, Hamatopus, Merops, Glareola (Brisson’s genus, by the way) and Palamedea.
1 From carina, a keel.
2 From ratis, a raft or flat-bottomed barge.
* “Beschreibung der Gerippes eines Casuars nebst einigen beiliufigen Bemer- kungen tiber die flachbriistigen Vogel.” — Abhandl. der Berlin. Akademie, Phys. Klasse, 1817, pp. 179-198, tabb. i.-iii.
* Merrem, as did many others in his time, calls the coracorns “clavicule”’ ; but it is now well understood that in Birds the real clavicule form the FURCULA.
° He also placed the genus 7odus in the same group, but it must be borne in mind that in his time a great many Birds were referred to that genus which certainly do
not belong to it, and it-may well have been that he never had the opportunity of examining a specimen of the genus as nowadays restricted.
INTRODUCTION 49
be regretted that the very concise terms in which his decisions were given to the world make it impossible to determine with any degree of certainty the extent of the changes in this respect which he would have introduced. Had Merrem published his scheme on an enlarged scale, it seems likely that he would have obtained for it far more attention, and possibly some portion of acceptance. He had deservedly attained no little reputation as a descriptive anatomist, and his claims to be regarded as a systematic reformer would probably have been admitted in his lifetime. As it was his scheme apparently fell flat, and not until many years had elapsed were its merits at all generally recognized.
Notice has next to be taken of a Memoir on the Employment of Sternal Characters in establishing Natural Families among Birds, which was read by De Blainville before the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 1815,1 but not published in full for more than five years later (Journ. de Physique, xcii. pp. 185-215), though an abstract forming part of a Prodrome @une nouvelle distribution du Regne Animal, appeared earlier (op. cit. Ixxxill. pp. 252, 253, 258, 259; and Bull. Soc. Philomat. Paris, 1816, p- 110). This is a very disappointing performance, since the author observes that, notwithstanding his new classification of Birds is based on a study of the sternal apparatus, yet, because that lies wholly within the body, he is compelled to have recourse to such outward characters as are afforded by the proportion of the limbs and the disposition of the toes— even as had been the practice of most ornithologists before him! It is evident that the features of the sternum on which De Blainville chiefly relied, though he states the contrary, were those drawn from its posterior margin, which no very extensive experience of specimens is needed to shew are of comparatively slight value ; for the number of ‘‘ échancrures ” —notches as they have sometimes been called in Enghsh—when they exist, goes but a very short way as a guide, and is so variable in some very natural groups as to be even in that short way occasionally misleading.” There is no appearance of his having taken into consideration the far more trustworthy characters furnished by the anterior part of the sternum, as well as by the coracoids and the furcula. Still De Blainville made some advance in a right direction, as for instance by elevating the Parrots ° and the Pigeons as “ Ordres,” equal in rank to that of the Birds-of-Prey and some others. According to the testimony of L’Herminier (for whom see later) he divided the “ Passereauz” into two sections, the “faux” and the “vrais” ; but, while the latter were very correctly defined, the former were most arbitrarily separated from the “ Grimpeurs.” He also split his Grallatores and Natatores (practically identical with the Grallw and Anseres of Linneeus) each into four sections ; but he failed to see—as on his own principles he ought to have seen—that each of these sections was at least equivalent to almost any one of his other “ Ordres.’ He had, however, the courage to act up to his own professions in collocating the Rollers
1 Not 1812, as has sometimes been stated, probably on his own authority (Coc. cit. p. 110), but this seems to be a misprint for 1815.
2 Of. Philos. Trans. 1869, p. 337, note.
3 This view had been long before taken by Willughby, but abandoned by later authors, %
50 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
(Coracias) with the Bee-eaters (Merops), and had the sagacity to surmise that Menura was not a Gallinaceous Bird. The greatest benefit conferred by this memoir probably is that it stimulated the efforts, presently to be mentioned, of one of his pupils, and that it brought more distinctly into sight that other feature (page 48), originally discovered by Merrem, of which it now clearly became the duty of systematizers to take cognizance.
Following the order of time we next have to recur to the labours of Nitzsch, who, in 1820, in a treatise on the Nasal Glands of Birds—a subject that had already attracted the atten ion of Jacobson (Now. Bull. Soc. Philomat. Paris, iii. pp. 267-269)—first put forth in Meckel’s Deutsches Archiv fiir die Physiologie (vi. pp. 251-269) a statement of his general views on ornithological classification which were based on a comparative examination of those bodies in various forms. It seems unnecessary here to occupy space by giving an abstract of his plan, which hardly includes any but European species, because it was subsequently elaborated with no inconsiderable modifications in a way that must presently be mentioned at greater length. But the scheme, crude as it was, possesses some interest. It is not only a key to much of his later work—to nearly all indeed that was published in his lifetime—but in it are founded several definite groups (for example, Passerine and Picarig) that subsequent experience has shewn to be more or less natural; and it further serves as additional evidence of the breadth of his views, and his trust in the teachings of anatomy; for it is clear that, if organs so apparently insignificant as these nasal glands were found worthy of being taken into account, and capable of forming a base of operations, in drawing up a system, it would almost follow that there can be no part of a Bird’s organization that by proper study would not help to supply some means of solving the great question of its affinities. This seems to be one of the most certain general truths in Zoology, and it is probably admitted in theory to be so by most zoologists, but their practice is opposed to it ; for, whatever group of animals be studied, it is found that one set or another of characters is the chief favourite of the authors consulted—each gener- ally taking a separate set, and that to the exclusion of all others, instead of effecting a combination of all the sets and taking the aggregate.?
That Nitzsch took this extended view is abundantly proved by the valuable series of ornithotomical observations which he must have been for some time accumulating, and almost immediately afterwards began to contribute to the younger Naumann’s excellent Naturgeschichte der Vogel Deutschlands, already noticed. Beside a concise general treatise on the Organization of Birds to be found in the introduction to that work (i. pp.
? This plan, having been repeated by Schépss in 1829 (op. cit. xii. p. 73), became known to Owen in 1835, who then drew to it the attention of Kirby (Seventh Bridge- water Treatise, ii. pp. 444, 445), and in the next year referred to it in his own article “Aves” (Todd’s Cyclop. Anat. i. p. 226), so that Englishmen need no excuse for not being aware of one of Nitzsch’s labours, though his more ecvene work of 1829, pr esently to be mentioned, was not cited by Owen.
* A remarkable instance of this may be seen in the Syston Avium, promulgated in 1830 by Wagler (a man with great knowledge of Birds) in his Natiirliches System der Amphibien (pp. 77-128). He took the tongue as his chief guide, and found it indeed an vuruly member.
INTRODUCTION $1
23-52), a brief description from Nitzsch’s pen of the peculiarities of the internal structure of nearly every genus is incorporated with the author’s prefatory remarks, as each passed under consideration, and these de- scriptions being almost without exception so drawn up as to be com- parative are accordingly of great utility to the student of classification, though they have been greatly neglected. Upon these descriptions he was still engaged till death, in 1837, put an end to his labours, when his place as Naumann’s assistant for the remainder of the work was taken by Rudolph Wagner; but, from time to time, a few more, which he had already completed, made their posthumous appearance in it, and, even in recent years, some selections from his unpublished papers have through the care of Giebel been presented to the public. Throughout the whole of this series the same marvellous industry and scrupulous accuracy are manifested, and attentive study of it will shew how many times Nitzsch anticipated the conclusions at which it took some modern taxonomers fifty years to arrive. Yet over and over again his determination of the affinities of several groups even of European Birds was disregarded ; and his labours, being contained in a bulky and costly work, were hardly known at all outside of his own country, and within it by no means appreciated so much as they deserved 1—for even Naumann himself, who gave them publication, aud was doubtless in some degree influenced by them, utterly failed to perceive the importance of the characters offered by the song-muscles of certain groups, though their peculiarities were all duly described and recorded by his coadjutor, as some indeed had been long before by Cuvier in his famous dissertation? on the organs of voice in Birds (Legons d’anat. comp. iv. pp. 450-491). Nitzsch’s name was subsequently dismissed by Cuvier without a word of praise, and in terms which would have been applicable to many another and inferior author, while Temminck, terming Naumann’s work an “ouvrage de luxe,’—it being in truth one of the cheapest for its contents ever published,—effectually shut it out from the realms of science. In Britain it seems to have been positively unknown until quoted some years after its completion by a catalogue-compiler on account of some peculiarities of nomenclature which it presented.?
Now we must return to France, where, in 1827, L’Herminier, a creole of Guadeloupe and a pupil of De Blainville’s, contributed to the Actes of the Linnean Society of Paris for that year (vi. pp. 3-93) the ‘ Recherches sur l’appareil sternal des Oiseaux,’ which the precept and example of his master had prompted him to undertake, and Cuvier had found for him the means of executing. A second and considerably enlarged edition of this very remarkable treatise was published as a separate work in the following year. We have already seen that De Blainville, though fully persuaded of the great value of sternal features as a method of classification, had been compelled to fall back upon the old pedal characters so often
1 Their value was, however, understood by Gloger, who in 1834, as will presently be seen, expressed his regret at not being able to use them.
2 Cuvier’s first observations on the subject seem to have appeared in the Magazin Encyclopédique for 1795 (ii. pp. 330, 358).
3 However, to this catalogue-compiler my gratitude is due, for thereby I became acquainted with the work and its merits,
52 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
employed before ; but now the scholar had learnt to excel his teacher, and not only to form an at least provisional arrangement of the various members of the Class, based on sternal characters, but to describe these characters at some length, and so give a reason for the faith that was in him. There is no evidence, so far as we can see, of his having been aware of Merrem’s views ; but like that anatomist he without hesitation divided the Class into two great “coupes,” to which he gave, however, no other names than “ Oiseaue Normaux” and “ Oiseauw Anomauax,”—exactly corresponding with his predecessor’s Carinatx and Ratite—and, moreover, he had a great advantage in founding these groups, since he had discovered, apparently from his own investigations, that the mode of ossification in each was distinct ; for hitherto the statement of there being five centres of ossification in every Bird’s sternum seems to have been accepted as a general truth, without contradiction, whereas in the Ostrich and the Rhea, at any rate, L’Herminier found that there were but two such primitive points,! and from analogy he judged that the same would be the case with the Cassowary and the Emeu, which, with the two forms mentioned above, made up the whole of the “ Oiseaux Anomaux” whose existence was then generally acknowledged.2 These are the forms which composed the Family previously termed Cursores by De Blainville ; but L’Herminier was able to distinguish no fewer than thirty-four Families of “ Oiseaux Normaue,” and the judgment with which their separation and definition were effected must be deemed on the whole to be most creditable to him, It is to be remarked, however, that the wealth of the Paris Museum, which he enjoyed to the full, placed him in a situation incomparably more favourable for arriving at results than that which was occupied by Merrem, to whom many of the most remarkable forms were inaccessible, while L’Herminier had at his disposal examples of nearly every type then discovered. But the latter used this privilege wisely and well—not, after the manner of De Blainville and others subsequent to him, relying solely or even chiefly on the character afforded by the posterior portion of the sternum, but taking also into consideration those of the anterior, as well as of the in some cases still more important characters presented by the presternal bones, such as the furcula, coracoids and scapule. L’Herminier thus separated the families of “ Normal Birds” :—
1. “Accipitres”’—Accipitres, Linn. 10. “Couroucous””—Trogon, Linn.
2. “Serpentaires” — Gypogeranus, | 11. “ Rolliers”—Galgulus, Brisson. Illiger. 12. “Guépiers’’?—Merops, Linn.
3. “Chouettes ’—Strix, Linn. 13. “ Martins-Pécheurs ’—Alcedo, Linn.
4. “Touracos’—Opaetus, Vieillot. 14. “Calaos””—Buceros, Linn.
5. “ Perroquets ’—Psitéacus, Linn. 15. “Toucans””—Ramphastos, Linn.
6. “Colibris””—Trochilus, Linn. 16. “Pies” —Picus, Linn.
7. “Martinets””—Cypselus, Iliger. 17. “Epopsides ”»—Epopsides, Vieillot.
8. “Engoulevents” — Caprimulgus, | 18. “ Passereaux ’’—Passeres, Linn. Linn. 19. “Pigeons ”—Colwmba, Linn.
9. “Coucous "—Cuculus, Linn. 20. “Gallinacés ”— Gallinacea.
1 This fact in the Ostrich appears to have been known already to Geoffroy St.- Hilaire from his own observation in Egypt, but does not seem to have been published by him.
? Considerable doubts were at that time, as said elsewhere (Krtwz), entertained in Paris as to the existence of the Apteryzx.
INTRODUCTION 53
21. “Tinamous ”—Tinamus, Tatham. 27. “Mouettes””—Larus, Linn.
22. “Foulques ou Poules d’eau”— | 28. “ Pétrels ””—Procellaria; Linn. Fulica, Linn. 29, “ Pélicans”’—Pelecanus, Linn.
23. “Grues ’—Grus, Pallas. 30. ‘“Canards ”—Anas, Linn.
24. “Hérodions ’—Herodit, Mliger. 31. “Grébes””—Podiceps, Latham.
25. No name given, but said to include | 32. “ Plongeons””—Colymbus, Latham. “les ibis et les spatules.” 33. “ Pingouins’’—Alca, Latham.
26. “Gralles ou Kchassiers’’—Grallz. 34. ‘“ Manchots ”’—A ptenodytes, Forster.
The preceding list is given to shew the very marked agreement of L’Herminier’s results compared with those obtained fifty years later by another investigator, who approached the subject from an entirely different, though still osteological, basis. The sequence of the Families adopted is of course open to much criticism ; but that would be wasted upon it at the present day ; and the cautious naturalist will remember that it is generally difficult and in most cases absolutely impossible to deploy even a small section of the Animal Kingdom into line. So far as a linear arrangement will permit, the above list is very creditable, and will not only pass muster, but cannot easily be surpassed for convenience even at this moment. Experience has shewn that a few of the Families are composite, and therefore require further splitting ; but examples of actually false group- ing cannot be said to occur. The most serious fault perhaps to be found is the intercalation of the Ducks (No. 30) between the Pelicans and the Grebes—but every systematist must recognize the difficulty there is in finding a place for the Ducks in any arrangement we can at present con- trive that shall be regarded as satisfactory. Many of the excellences of L/Herminier’s method could not be pointed out without too great a sacrifice of space, because of the details into which it would be necessary to enter ; but the trenchant way in which he shewed that the ‘‘ Passereaux” —a group of which Cuvier had said “Son caractere semble d’abord purement négatif,” and had failed to define the limits—differed so completely from every other assemblage, while maintaining among its own innumerable members an almost perfect essential homogeneity, is very striking, and shews how admirably he could grasp his subject. Not less conspicuous are his merits in disposing of the groups of what are ordinarily known as Water-birds, his indicating the affinity of the Rails (No. 22) to the Cranes (No. 23), and the severing of the latter from the Herons (No. 24), His union of the Snipes, Sandpipers and Plovers into one group (No. 26) and the alliance, especially dwelt upon, of that group with the Gulls (No. 27) are steps which, though indicated by Merrem, are here for the first time clearly laid down ; and the separation of the Gulls from the Petrels (No. 28)—a step in advance already taken, it is true, by Illiger—is here placed on indefeasible ground. With all this, perhaps on account of all this, L’Herminier’s efforts did not find favour with his scientific superiors, and for the time things remained as though his investi- gations had never been carried on.!
Two years later Nitzsch, who was indefatigable in his endeavour to
1 With the exception of a brief and wholly inadequate notice in the Edinburgh Journal of Natural History (i. p. 90), I am not aware of attention having been directed to L’Herminier’s labours by British ornithologists for several years after ; but con- sidering how they were employing themselves at the time (as is shewn in another place) this is not surprising.
54 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
discover the Natural Families of Birds, and had been pursuing a series of
researches into their vascular system, published the result, at Halle in
Saxony, in his Observationes de Avium arteria carotide communi, in
which is included a classification drawn up in accordance with the varia-
tion of structure which that important vessel presented in the several groups that he had opportunities of examining. By this time he had visited several of the principal museums on the Continent, among others
Leyden (where Temminck lived) and Paris (where he had frequent inter-
course with Cuvier), thus becoming acquainted with a considerable number
of exotic forms that had hitherto been inaccessible to him. Consequently his labours had attained to a certain degree of completeness in this direc- tion, and it may therefore be expedient here to name the different groups which he thus thought himself entitled to consider established. They are as follows :— I. Aves CartnatH [L’H. “Oiseaux Normaux”]. A. Aves Carinate aeree.
1. Accipitrine [L’H. 1, 2 partim, 3]; 2. Passering [L’H. 18] ; 3. Macrochires [L’H. 6, 7]; 4. Cuculine [L’H. 8, 9, 10 (qu. 11, 122)]; 5. Picitna [L’H. 15, 16]; 6. Psittacine [L’H. 5]; 7. Lipoglosse [L’H.-13, 14, 17]; 8. Amphibole [L’H. 4].
B. Aves Carinat terrestres.
1. Columbine [L’H. 19]; 2. Gallinacew [L’H. 20].
C. Aves Carinate aquatice.
Gralle. 1. Alectorides (= Dicholophus + Otis) [L°H. 2 partim, 26 partim]; 2. Gruinew [L’H. 23]; 3. Fulicariw [L’H. 22]; 4. Herodiw [L’H. 24 partim]; 5. Pelargi [L’H. 24 partim, 25]; 6. Odontoglossi (= Phenicopterus) [L’H. 26 partim]; 7. Liinicole [L’H. 26 pene omnes]. Palmatee. 8. Longipennes [L’H. 27]; 9. Nasuta [L’H. 28]; 10. Unguirostres [L’H. 30]; 11 Steganopodes [L’H. 29]; 12. Pygopodes [L’H. 81, 82, 33, 34].
Il. Aves Ratirm [L’H. “ Oiseaux Anomaux’’].
To enable the reader to compare the several groups of Nitzsch with the Families of L’Herminier, the numbers applied by the latter to his Families are suffixed in square brackets to the names of the former ; and, disregarding the order of sequence, which is here immaterial, the essential correspondence of the two systems is worthy of all attention, for it obviously means that these two investigators, starting from different points, must have been on the right track, when they so often coincided as to the limits of what they considered to be, and what we are now almost justified in calling, Natural Groups.! But it must be observed that the classifica- tion of Nitzsch, just given, rests much more on characters furnished by
1 Whether Nitzsch was cognizant of L’Herminier’s views is in no way apparent. The latter’s name seems not to be even mentioned by him, but Nitzsch was in Paris in the summer of 1827, and it is almost impossible that he should not have heard of L’Herminier’s labours, unless the relations between the followers of Cuvier, to whom Nitzsch attached himself, and those of De Blainville, whose pupil L’Herminier was, were such as to forbid any communication between the rival schools. Yet we have L’Herminier’s evidence that Cuvier gave him every assistance. Nitzsch’s silence, both on this occasion and afterwards, is very curious ; but he cannot be accused of plagiarism, for the scheme given above is only an amplification of that foreshadowed by him (as already mentioned) in 1820—a scheme which seems to have been equally unknown to L Hermiuier, perhaps through linguistic difficulty.
INTRODUCTION ob)
the general structure than those furnished by the carorip artery only. Among all the species (188, he tells us, in number) of which he examined specimens, he found only fowr variations in the structure of that vessel , but so much has since been done in this way that there is no need to dwell on his particular researches, and the reader may be referred to Dr. Gadow’s article in the text of this work (pp. 76, 77).
Considering the enormous stride in advance made by L’Herminier, it is very disappointing for the historian to have to record that the next inquirer into the osteology of Birds achieved a disastrous failure in his attempt to throw light on their arrangement by means of a comparison of their sternum. This was Berthold, who devoted a long chapter of his Beitrige zur Anatomie, published at Gottingen in 1831, to a consideration of the subject. So far as his introductory chapter went—the development of the sternum—he was, for his time, right enough and somewhat instructive. It was only when, after a close examination of the sternal apparatus of 130 species, which he carefully described, that he arrived (pp. 177-183) at the conclusion—astonishing to us who know of L’Her- minier’s previous results—that the sternum of Birds cannot be used as a help to their classification on account of the egregious anomalies that would follow the proceeding—such anomalies, for instance, as the separation of Cypselus from Hirundo and its alliance with Trochilus, and the grouping of Hirundo and Fringilla together. He seems to have been persuaded that the method of Linnzus and his disciples was indisputably right, and that any method which contradicted it must therefore be wrong. Moreover, he appears to have regarded the sternal structure as a mere function of the Bird’s habit, especially in regard to its power of flight, and to have wholly overlooked the converse position that this power of flight must depend entirely on the structure. Good descriptive anatomist as he certainly was, he was false to the anatomist’s creed ; but it is plain, from reading his careful descriptions of sternums, that he could not grasp the essential characters he had before him, and, attracted only by the more salient and obvious features, had not capacity to interpret the meaning of the whole. Yet he did not amiss by giving many figures of sternums hitherto unrepresented. We pass from him to a more lively theme,
At the very beginning of the year 1832 Cuvier laid before the Academy of Sciences of Paris a memoir on the progress of ossification in the sternum of Birds, of which memoir an abstract will be found in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles (xxv. pp. 260-272). Herein he treated of several subjects with which we are not particularly concerned at present, and his remarks throughout were chiefly directed against certain theories which Etienne Geoffroy St.-Hilaire had propounded in his Philosophie Anatomique, published a good many years before, and need not trouble us here; but what does signify to us now is that Cuvier traced in detail, illustrating his statements by the preparations he exhibited, the progress of ossification in the sternum of the Fowl and of the Duck, pointing out how it differed in each, and giving his inter- pretation of the differences. It had hitherto been generally believed that the mode of ossification in the Fowl was that which obtained in all
56 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
Birds—the Ostrich and its allies (as L’Herminier, we have seen, had already shewn) excepted. But it was now made to appear that the Struthious Birds in this respect resembled not only the. Duck, but a great many other groups—Waders, Birds-of-Prey, Pigeons, Passerines and perhaps all Birds not Gallinaceous,—so that, according to Cuvier’s view, the five points of ossification observed in the Gallinx, instead of exhibiting the normal process, exhibited one quite exceptional, and that in all other Birds, so far as he had been enabled to investigate the matter, ossification of the sternum began at two points only, situated near the anterior upper margin of the side of the sternum, and gradu- ally crept towards the keel, into which it presently extended; and, though he allowed the appearance of detached portions of calcareous matter at the base of the still cartilaginous keel in Ducks at a certain age, he seemed to consider this an individual peculiarity. This fact was fastened upon by Geoffroy in his reply, which was a week later pre- sented to the Academy, but was not published in full until the following year, when it appeared in the Annales du Muséwm (ser. 3, ii. pp. 1-22). Geoffroy here maintained that the five centres of ossification existed in the Duck just as in the Fowl, and that the real difference of the process lay in the period at which they made their appearance, a cir- cumstance,. which, though virtually proved by the preparations Cuvier had used, had been by him overlooked or misinterpreted. The Fowl possesses all five ossifications at birth, and for a long while the middle piece forming the keel is by far the largest. They all grow slowly, and it is not until the animal is about six months old that they are united into one firm bone. The Duck on the other hand, when newly hatched, and for nearly a month after, has the sternum wholly cartilaginous. Then, it is true, two lateral points of ossification appear at the margin, but subsequently the remaining three are developed, and when once formed they grow with much greater rapidity than in the Fowl, so that by the time the young Duck is quite independent of its parents, and can shift for itself, the whole sternum is completely bony. Nor, argued Geoffroy, was it true to say, as Cuvier had said, that. the like occurred in the Pigeons and true Passerines. In their case the sternum begins to ossify from three very distinct points—one of which is the centre of ossification of the keel. As regards the Struthious Birds, they could not be likened to the Duck, for in them at no age was there any indication of a single median centre of ossification, as Geoffroy had satisfied himself by his own observations made in Egypt many years before. Cuvier seems to have acquiesced in the corrections of his views made by Geoffroy, and attempted no rejoinder; but the attentive and impartial student of the discussion will see that a good deal was really wanting to make the latter’s reply effective, though, as events have shewn, the former was hasty in the conclusions at which he arrived, having trusted too much to the first appearance of centres of ossification, for, had his observations in regard to other Birds been carried on with the same attention to detail as in regard to the Fowl, he would cer- tainly have reached some very different results.
In 1834 Gloger brought out at Breslau the first (and unfortunately
INTRODUCTION 57
the only) part of a Vollstiéndiges Handbuch der Natwryeschichte der Végel Europa’s, treating of the Land-birds. In the Introduction to this book (p. Xxxvill. note) he expressed his regret at not being able to use as fully as he could wish the excellent researches of Nitzsch which were then appearing (as has been above said) in the successive parts of Nau- mann’s great work. Notwithstanding this, to Gloger seems to belong the credit of being the first author to avail himself, in a book intended for practical ornithologists, of the new light that had already been shed on Systematic Ornithology ; and accordingly we have the second Order of his arrangement, the Aves Passerinex, divided into two Suborders :— Singing Passerines (melodusx), and Passerines without an apparatus of Song-muscles (anomalx)—the latter including what some later writers called Picartx. For the rest his classification demands no particular remark ; but that in a work of this kind he had the courage to recognize, for instance, such a fact as the essential difference between Swallows and Swifts, lifts him considerably above the crowd of other ornithological writers of his time.
An improvement on the old method of classification by purely external characters was introduced to the Academy of Sciences of Stock- holm by Sundevall in 1835, and was published the following year in its Handlingar (pp. 43-130). This was the foundation of a more extensive work of which, from the influence it still exerts, it will be necessary to treat later, and there will be no need now to enter much into details respecting the earlier performance. It is sufficient here to remark that the author, even then a man of great erudition, must have been aware of the turn which taxonomy was taking; but, not being able to divest himself of the older notion that external characters were superior to those furnished by the study of internal structure, and that Comparative Anatomy, instead of being a part of Zoology, was some- thing distinct from it, he seems to have endeavoured to form a scheme which, while not running wholly counter to the teachings of Com- parative Anatomists, should yet rest ostensibly on external characters. With this view he studied the latter most laboriously, and certainly not without success, for he brought into prominence several points that had hitherto escaped the notice of his predecessors. He also admitted among his characteristics a physiological consideration (apparently derived from Oken!) dividing the class Aves into two sections Altrices and Precoces, according as the young were fed by their parents, or, from the first, fed themselves. But at this time he was encumbered with the hazy doctrine of analogies, which, if it did not act to his detriment, was assuredly of no service to him. He prefixed an ‘Idea Systematis’ to his ‘Expositio’; and the former, which appears to represent his real opinion, differs in arrangement very considerably from the latter. Like Gloger, Sundevall in his ideal system separated the true Passerines from all other Birds, calling them Volucres; but he took a step further, for he assigned to them the highest rank, wherein nearly every recent
1 He says from Oken’s Nuaturgeschichte fiir Schulen, published in 1821, but the division is to be found in that author’s earlier Lehrbuch der Zoologie (ii. p. 371), which appeared in 1816,
58 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
authority agrees with him; out of them, however, he chose the Thrushes and Warblers to stand first as his ideal “ Centrum ”—a selection which, though in the opinion of the present writer erroneous, is still widely followed. ;
The points at issue between Cuvier and Etienne Geoffroy St- Hilaire before mentioned naturally attracted the attention of L’Her- minier, who in 1836 presented to the French Academy the results of his researches into the mode of growth of that bone which in the adult Bird he had already studied to such good purpose. Unfortunately the full account of his diligent investigations was never published. We can only judge of his labours from an abstract (Comptes Rendus, iii. pp. 12-20, and Ann. Sct. Nag. ser. 2, vi. pp. 107-115), and from the report upon them by Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire (Comptes Rendus, iv. pp. 565-574), to whom with others they were referred, and which is very critical in its character. It were useless to conjecture why the whole memoir never appeared, as the reporter recommended that it should ; but, whether, as he suggested, the author’s observations failed to establish the theories he advanced or not, the loss of his observations in an extended form is greatly to be regretted, for no one seems to have continued the investi- gations he began and to some extent carried out ; while, from his resi- dence in Guadeloupe, he had peculiar advantages in studying certain types of Birds not generally available, his remarks on them could not fail to be valuable, quite irrespective of the interpretation he was led to put upon them, L’Herminier arrived at the conclusion that, so far from there being only two or three different modes by which the process of ossification in the sternum is carried out, the number of different modes is very considerable—almost each natural group of Birds having its own, The principal theory which he hence conceived himself justified in propounding was that instead of five being (as had been stated) the maximum number of centres of ossification in the sternum, there are no fewer than nine entering into the composition of the perfect sternum of Birds in general, though in every species some of these nine are wanting, whatever be the condition of development at the time of examination. These nine theoretical centres or ‘‘ pieces” L’Herminier deemed to be disposed in three transverse ranks (rangés), namely the anterior or “prosternal,” the middle or “ mesosternal,” and the posterior “metasternal”—each rank consisting of three portions, one median piece and two side-pieces. At the same time he seems, according to the abstract of his memoir, to have made the somewhat contradictory asser- tion that sometimes there are more than three pieces in each rank, and in certain groups of Birds as many as six.!
1 We shall perhaps be justified in assuming that this apparent inconsistency, and others which present themselves, would be explicable if the whole memoir with the necessary illustrations had been published. It would occupy more space than can here be allowed to give even the briefest abstract of the numerous observations which follow the statement of his theory and on which it professedly rests. They extend to more than a score of natural groups of Birds, and nearly each of them presents some peculiar characters. Thus of the first rank of pieces he says that when all exist they may be developed simultaneously, or that the two side-pieces may precede the median, or again that the median may precede the side-pieces—according to the
INTRODUCTION 59
Hitherto it will have been seen that our present business has lain wholly in Germany and France, for, as is elsewhere explained, the chief ornithologists of Britain were occupying themselves at this time in a very useless way—not but that there were several distinguished men in this country who were paying due heed at this time to the internal structure of Birds, and some excellent descriptive memoirs on special forms had appeared from their pens, to say nothing of more than one general treatise on ornithic anatomy.! Yet no one in Britain seems to have attempted to found any scientific arrangement of Birds on other than external characters until, in 1837, William Macgillivray issued the first volume of his History of British Birds, wherein, though professing (p. 19) “not to add a new system to the many already in partial use, or that have passed away like their authors,” he propounded (pp. 16-18) a scheme for classifying the Birds of Europe at least founded on a “ con- sideration of the digestive organs, which merit special attention, on account, not so much of their great importance in the economy of birds, as the nervous, vascular and other systems are not behind them in this respect ; but because, exhibiting great diversity of form and structure, in accordance with the nature of the food, they are more obviously qualified to afford a basis for the classification of the numerous species of birds” (p. 52). Experience has again and again exposed the fallacy of this last conclusion, but it is no disparagement of its author to say,
group of Birds, but that the second mode is much the commonest. The same variations are observable in the second or middle rank, but its side-pieces are said to exist in all groups of Birds without exception. As to the third or posterior rank, when it is complete the three constituent pieces are developed almost simul- taneously ; but its median piece is said often to originate in two, which soon unite, especially when the side-pieces are wanting. By way of examples of L’Herminier’s observations, what he says of the two groups that had been the subject of Cuvier’s and the elder Geoffroy’s contest may be mentioned. In the Gallinz the five well- known pieces or centres of ossification are said to consist of the two side-pieces of the second or middle rank, and the three of the posterior. On two occasions, how- ever, there was found in addition, what may be taken for a representation of the first series, a little ‘‘noyau” situated between the coracoids—forming the only instance of all three ranks being present in the same Bird. As regards the Ducks, L’Herminier agreed with Cuvier that there are commonly only two centres of ossification—the side-pieces of the middle rank; but as these grow to meet one another a distinct median “noyaw,” also of the same rank, sometimes appears, which soon forms a connexion with each of them. In the Ostrich and its allies no trace of this median centre of ossification ever occurs; but its existence seems to be invariable in all other Birds.
1 Owen’s celebrated article ‘Aves,’ in Todd’s Cyclopedia. of Anatomy and Physiology (i. pp. 265-358), appeared in 1836, and, as giving a general view of the structure of Birds, needs no praise here; but its object was not to establish a classification, or throw light especially on systematic arrangement. So far from that being the case, its distinguished author was content to adopt, as he tells us, the arrangement proposed by Kirby in the Seventh Bridgewater Treatise (ii. pp. 445- 474), being that, it is true, of an estimable zoologist, but of one who had no special knowledge of Ornithology. Indeed it is, as the latter says, that of Linnzus, improved by Cuvier, with an additional modification of Illiger’s—all these three authors having totally ignored any but external characters. Yet it was regarded “as being the one which facilitates the expression of the leading anatomical differ- ences which obtain in the class of Birds, and which therefore may be considered ag the most natural ” !
60 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS
that in this passage, as well as in others that might be quoted, he was greater as an anatomist than as a logician. He was indeed thoroughly grounded in anatomy, and though undoubtedly the digestive organs of Birds have a claim to the fullest consideratign, yet Macgillivray himself subsequently became aware of the fact that there were several other parts of their structure as important from the point of view of classification. He it was, apparently, who first detected the essential difference of the organs of voice presented by some of the New-World Passeres (subsequently known as Clamatores), and the earliest intimation of this seems to be given in his anatomical description of the Arkansas Flycatcher, Tyrannus verticalis, which was published in 1838 (Ornithol. Biog. iv. p. 425), though it must be admitted that he did not—because he then could not—perceive the bearing of their difference, which was reserved to be shewn by the investigation of a still greater anatomist, and of one who had fuller facilities for research, and thereby almost revolutionized, as will presently be mentioned, the views of systematists as to this Order of Birds. There is only space here to say that the second volume of Macgillivray’s work was published in 1839, and the third in 1840; but it was not until 1852 that the author, in broken health, found an opportunity of issuing the fourth and fifth. His scheme of classification, being as before stated partial, need not be given in detail. Its great merit is that it proved the necessity of combining another and hitherto much-neglected factor in any natural arrangement, though vitiated as so many other schemes have been by being based wholly on one class of characters.
But a bolder attempt at classification was that made in 1838 by Blyth (Mag. Nat. Hist. New Ser. ii. pp. 256-268, 314-319, 351-361, 420-426, 589-601 ; iil. pp. 76-84). It was limited, however, to what he called Insessores, being the group upon which that name had been conferred by Vigors (Trans. Linn. Soc. xiv. p. 405) in 1823, with the addition, more- over, of his Raptores, and it will be unnecessary to enter into particulars concerning it, though it is equally as remarkable for the insight shewn by the author into the structure of Birds as for the breadth of his view, which comprehends almost every kind of character that had been at that time brought forward. It is plain that Blyth saw, and perhaps he was the first to see it, that Geographical Distribution was not unimportant in suggesting the affinities and differences of natural groups (pp. 258, 259) ; and, undeterred by the precepts and practice of the hitherto dominant English school of Ornithologists, he declared that “anatomy, when aided by every character which the manner of propagation, the progressive
1 This is not the place to dwell on Macgillivray’s merits ; but I may perhaps be excused for repeating my opinion that, after Willughby, Macgillivray was the greatest and most original ornithological genius save one (who did not live long enough to make his powers widely known) that this island has produced.