INTRODUCTION ii 



is not too much to say that Buffon's florid fancy revelled in such a subject 

 as was that on which he now exercised his brilliant pen ; but it would be 

 unjust to examine too closely what to many of his contemporaries seemed 

 sound philosophical reasoning under the light that has since burst upon 

 us. Strictly orthodox though he professed to be, there were those, both 

 among his own countrymen and foreigners, who could not read his 

 speculative indictments of the workings of Nature without a shudder ; 

 and it is easy for any one in these days to frame a reply, pointed with 

 ridicule, to such a chapter as he wrote on the wretched fate of the Wood- 

 pecker. In the nine volumes devoted to the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux 

 there are passages which will for ever live in the memory of those that 

 carefully read them, however much occasional expressions, or even the 

 general tone of the author, may grate upon their feelings. He too was 

 the first man who formed any theory that may be called reasonable of 

 the Geographical Distribution of Animals, though this theory was 

 scarcely touched in the ornithological portion of his work, and has since 

 proved to be not in accordance with facts. He proclaimed the variability 

 of species in opposition to the views of Linn sens as to their fixity, and 

 moreover supposed that this variability arose in part by degradation.^ 

 Taking his labours as a whole, there cannot be a doubt that he enormously 

 enlarged the purview of naturalists, and, even if limited to Birds, that, 

 on the completion of his work upon them in 1783, Ornithology stood in 

 a very different position from that which it had before occupied. Because 

 he opposed the system of Linnseus he has been said to be opposed to 

 systems in general ; but that is scarcely correct, for he had a system of 

 his own ; and, as we now see it, it appears neither much better nor much 

 worse than the systems which had been hitherto invented, or perhaps 

 than any which was propounded for many years to come. It is certain 

 that he despised any kind of scientific phraseology — a crime in the eyes 

 of those who consider precise nomenclature to be the end of science ; but 

 those who deem it merely a means whereby knowledge can be securely 

 stored will take a different view — and have done so. 



Great as were the services of Buffon to Ornithology in one direction, 

 €hose of a wholly different kind rendered by our countryman John 

 Latham must not be overlooked. In 1781 he began a work the practical 

 utility of which was immediately recognized. This was his General 

 Synopsis of Birds, and, though formed generally on the model of Linnseus 

 greatly diverged in some respects therefrom. The classification was 

 modified, chiefly on the older lines of Willughby and Bay, and certainly 

 for the better ; but no scientific nomenclature was adopted, which, as the 

 author subsequently found, was a change for the worse. His scope was 

 co-extensive with that of Brisson, but Latham did not possess the inborn 

 faculty of picking out the characters wherein one species difters from another. 

 His opportunities of becoming acquainted with Birds were hardly inferior 

 to Brisson's, for during Latham's long lifetime there poured in upon him 

 countless new discoveries from all parts of the world, but especially from 

 the newly-explored shores of Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. 



^ See Prof. Mivart's address to the Section of Biology, Hep. Brit. Association 

 (Sheffield Meeting), 1879, p. 356. 



