NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. . 339 



had been much subjected to the scalpel and the microscope those 

 might}' props of the theory of evolution, which now threatens a 

 revolution in revelation. 



The work reflects the man ; but upon its general merits, or 

 those of its author, there is no excuse for dwelling. The point 

 that chiefly concerns lis at present is, that Bartram, being a natu- 

 ralist, was necessarily part ornithologist. In point of fact, his 

 love of birds, it is evident in his writings, was second only to that 

 love of plants which was his by right of heritage from the botanist, 

 his father; and, as another matter of fact, his book is discontinu- 

 ously ornithological throughout. 



The book would be called rare by no bibliographer, but neither 

 is it very common now-a-days. It belongs to that large semi- 

 scarce class, which eveiy one interested in the subjects treated 

 knows of, but which most persons quote, upon occasion, at second 

 hand, until, grown wiser by experience in blundering, the}' feel 

 the force of the scholar's maxim, "always verify quotations!" 



The uncommonness, then, of the book has doubtless had some 

 influence upon its author's rather depauperate ornithological 

 laurels. Then again, some of his good seed (as we shall see in the 

 sequel) fell where the fowls (one in particular that might be men- 

 tioned) came and ate it. Once more, and worst of all, there hangs 

 about Bartram the unsavory suspicion of a dreadful crime for 

 the guilt of which some better ornithologists than Linnaeus have 

 been sent to unquotable Coventry I mean polynomialism. So it 

 falls out, that Bartram, qua ornithologist, has not been appreciated. 



But the count against him for nearly a century is not a true 

 bill ; the verdict must be, if not reversed, radically modified. In 

 brushing some of the dust off the volume of travels, as far as 

 ornithology is concerned, I shall take occasion to prove that 

 according to the articles of nomenclatural war, the customs and 

 precedents in such cases established, and the Rules of the British 

 Association, Bartram has not received his due. That is to say, 

 if we owe him anything, we have not paid him enough ; if we owe 

 him nothing, we have, nevertheless, given him some tribute. For 

 we have let him doze by the hearth-stone of nomenclature, in his 

 polynomial undress, and wakened him up occasionally when we 

 wanted some little binomial favor, like Vultur atratus, or Corvus 

 floridanus or G. carnivorus, for example. This is justice, neither 

 to him nor ourselves. The greatest stickler of all for the conven- 



