SPENCER F. BAIKl). 707 



and Wilsoii'S not excepted, and marked an epocli in the history of 

 American oniitholooy. Tlie synonymy ami si)ecific cliarai^ters, original 

 in this work, have been nsed again and again by subseiinent writers, 

 with varions modifications ami abridgment, and are in fact a large basis 

 of the technical portion of the snbseqnent ' History of N^orth American 

 Birds,' by Baird, Brewer, and Ridgvvay. Such a, monument of original 

 research is likely to remain for an indefinite period a source of inspira- 

 tion to lesser writers, while its authority as a work of reference will 

 always endure." 



Thus are graphically described the distinctive features of what Mr. 

 Leonhard Stejneger has truthfully termed the Bairdian School* of 

 ornithology, a school strikingly characterized by peculiar exactness in 

 dealing with facts, conciseness in expressing deductions, and careful 

 analysis of the subject in its various bearings ; — methods so radically 

 different from those of the older " European School " that, as the 

 esteemed member whom we have just named has already remarked, t 

 conclusions or arguments can be traced back to their source and thus 

 properly weighed, whereas the latter affords no basis for analysis. In 

 other words, as Mr. Stejneger has, in substance, said, the European 

 School requires the investigator to accept an author's statements and 

 conclusions on his personal responsibility alone, while the Bairdian 

 furnishes him with tangible facts from which to take his deductions. 



The dominant sources of Professor Baird's training in systematic or- 

 nithology are not difficult to trace ; in fact, the bases of his classifications 

 are so fully explained or frequently mentioned in his various works as to 

 leave nothing to mere inference. He studied carefully the more ad- 

 vanced systems of his time, and with unerring instinct selected from 

 them their best features, and combined them, together with original ideas, 

 into a classification which was an improvement on its predecessors. 

 Thus, the classification presented in the "Birds of North America" 

 (1858) is based essentially upon the systems of Sundevall {" Ornitholo- 

 giskt System," 1835 and 1843), Gabanis ("Ornithologische Notizen," 

 1847), and Keyserling and Blasius (" Wirbelthiere Europas," 1340). 

 The nomenclature was fixed by methods adopted from G. R. Gray 

 ("List of the Genera of Birds," etc., 1841-42), to the abandonment of 

 which must be attributed most of the subsequent changes in generic 

 names. In the " Review" (1864-'0G) and "History of jS^orth American 

 Birds" (1874), a further concession is made to the classifications of Sun- 

 devall and Cabanis by commencing with the Order Passeres and Fam- 

 ily Turdida'. instead of the Kaptores. The same systems were the 

 foundation of Liljeborg's "Classification of Birdsj" formally adopted by 

 the Smithsonian Institution (through Professor Baird) in 1800, by 

 Messrs. Sclater and Salvin (with certain emendations ami amplifica- 



"Proc. \L S. Niit.. M.is., vol. vn, 1H84, p. 76. t Ihid., p. 77. 



