INTRODUCTION 



Hitherto, from the nature of the case, the works aforesaid treated of 

 scarcely any but the Birds belonging to the orhis veteribus notus ; but the 

 geographical discoveries of the sixteenth century began to bear fruit, and 

 many animals of kinds unsuspected were, about one hundred years later, 

 made known. Here there is only space to name Bontius, Clusius, 

 Hernandez ^ (or Fernandez), Marcgrave, Nieremberg and Piso,^ whose 

 several works describing the natural products of both the Indies — whether 

 the result of their own observation or compilation — together with those 

 of Olina and Worm, produced a marked effect, since they led up to what 

 may be deemed the foundation of scientific Ornithology .^ 



This foundation was laid by the joint labours of Francis Willughby 

 (born 1635, died 1672) and John Ray (born 1628, died 1705), for it is 

 impossible to separate their share of work in Natural History more than 

 to say that, while the former more especially devoted himself to zoology, 

 botany Avas the favourite pursuit of the latter. Together they studied, 

 together they travelled and together they collected. Willughby, the 

 younger of the two, and at first the other's pupil, seems to have gradually 

 become the master ; but dying before the promise of his life was fulfilled, 

 his writings were given to the world by his friend Ray, who, adding to 

 them from his own stores, published the Ornithologia in Latin in 1676, 

 and in English with many emendations in 1678. In this work Birds 

 generally were grouped in two great divisions — " Land-Fowl " and 

 " Water-Fowl," — the former being subdivided into those which have a 

 crooked beak and talons and those which have a straighter bill and 

 claws, while the latter was separated into those which frequent waters 

 and watery places and those that swim in the water — each subdivision 

 being further broken up into many sections, to the whole of which 

 a key was given. Thus it became possible for almost any diligent 

 reader without much chance of error to refer to its proper place nearly 

 every bird he was likely to meet with. Ray's interest in ornithology con- 

 tinued, and in 1694 he completed a Synopsis Methodica Avium, which, 

 through the fault of the booksellers to whom it was entrusted, was not 

 published till 1713, when Derham gave it to the world.'' 



Two years after Ray's death, Linnaeus, the great reformer of Natural 

 History, was born, and in 1735 appeared the first edition of the celebrated 

 Systema Naturse. Successive editions of this work were produced under 



^ The earliest work of Hernandez, published at Mexico in 1615, copies of which 

 are very scarce, has been reprinted and edited by Dr. Le6n (8vo, Morelia : 1888). 



^ For Lichtenstein's determination of the Birds described by Marcgrave and Piso 

 see the Ahhandlungen of the Berlin Academy for 1817 (pp. 155 et seqq.) 



^ The earliest list of British Birds seems to be that in the Pinax Rerum Naturalium 

 of Christopher Merrett, published in 1666, and to be again mentioned presently. In 

 1668 appeared the Onomasticon Zooicon of Walter Charleton, which contains some 

 information on ornithology. An enlarged edition of the latter, under the title of 

 Eoxrcitatimies, kc, was published in 1677 ; but neither of these writers is of much 

 authority. In 1684 Sibbald in his Scotia Ulustrata published the earliest Fauna of 

 Scotland. 



* To this was added a supplement by Petiver on the Birds of Madras, taken from 

 pictures and information sent him by one Edward Buckley of Fort St. George, being 

 the first attempt to catalogue the Birds of any part of the British possessions in 

 India. 



