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 Goiter, 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 Externarum et internarum principalium humani corporis 

 Tahulx, &c., while the second, which is the most valuable, is merely 

 appended to the Lediones Gabrielis Fallopii de partibus similaribus humani 

 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 Goiter introduced a table, '^ De differentiis Auium" 

 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. 



Gontemporary with these three men was Ulysses Aldrovandus, a 

 Bolognese, who wrote an Historia Naturalium 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 Gaspar Schwenckfeld, 

 published at Liegnitz in 1603, under the title of Theriotropheum Silesiae, the 

 fourth book of which consists of an " Aviarium Silesiae," 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 sufiicient 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.^ 



^ The Historia Naturalis of John Johnstone or Jonston, of Scottish descent but 

 by birth a Pole {Diet. 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 Ilierozoicon of Bochart — a treatise on the animals named in Holy Writ — was 

 published in 1619. 



