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 ^lian himself. 



The twenty-six books De Animalibus of Albertus Magnus (Groot), who 

 died A.D. 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 tradatus of this volurae 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 



^ On this point see G. A. Pritzel, Botan. Zeitung, 1846, pp. 785-790, and Thes. 

 Literal. Botanicse (Lipsise : 1851), pp. 349-352. 



^ I 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 Leydeu [Encycl. 

 Brit. ed. 9, xix. pp. 6, 7). 



* Absurd as much that we find both in Albertus Magnus and the Ortus 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 ^vTitten soon after 1121, as printed by the late Mr. Thomas 

 Wright, in his Popular Treatises on Science written during the Middle Ages (Loudon : 

 1841). Perhaps the De Naturis Rerum libri duo of Alexander Neckam (oh. 1217), 

 the foster-brother of Kichard Cceur de Lion, may be excepted, for therein (lib, i. 



