DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



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.^ In later ages the representations 

 of Birds of one sort or another in Egyptian paintings and sculptures 

 become countless, and the bassi-rilievi 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 



^ For instances of this among Greeks and Romans almost any work on " Classical 

 Antiquities " may be consulted, while as regards the superstitions of barbarous nations 

 the authorities are far too numerous to be here named. 



" A. facsimile 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. Archasol. viii. pp. 42-142, 13 pis. (1883). The author being but a 

 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 'laropiai wepl ^i^uv (Leipzig : 1868) limit the number to 126. 



