INTRODUCTION 13 



Zoologicae. ; J acquin's Bey tracge zur Geschichte der Voegel at Vienna in 1784, 

 and in 1790 at the same place the larger work of Spalowsky with nearly 

 the same title ; Sparrman's Museum Garlsonianum at Stockholm from 

 1786 to 1789; and in 1794 Hayes's Portraits of rare and curious Birds 

 from the menagery of Child the banker at Osterley near London. The 

 same draughtsman (who had in 1775 produced a bad History of British 

 Birds) in 1822 began another series of Figures of rare and curious 

 Birds} 



The practice of Brisson, Buffon, Latham and others of not giving 

 names after the Linnsean fashion to the species they described gave great 

 encouragement to compilation, and led to what has proved to be of some 

 inconvenience to modern ornithologists. In 1773 Philip Ludvig Statins 

 Miiller brought out at Nuremberg a German translation of the Systema 

 Naturse, completing it in 1776 by a Supplement containing a list of 

 animals thus described, which had hitherto been technically anonymous, 

 with diagnoses and names on the Linnaean model. In 1783 Boddaert 

 printed at Utrecht a Table des Planches Enlumin^ez,'^ in which he attempted 

 to refer every species of Bird figured in that extensive series to its proper 

 Linnsean genus, and to assign it a scientific name if it did not already 

 possess one. In like manner in 1786, Scopoli — already the author of a 

 little book published at Leipzig in 1769 under the title of Annus I. 

 Historico-naturalis, in which are described many Birds, mostly from his 

 own collection or the Imperial vivarium at Vienna — was at the pains to 

 print at Pavia in his miscellaneous Deliciee Florse et Faunae Insubricae a 

 Specimen Zoologicum^ containing diagnoses, duly named, of the Birds 

 discovered and described by Sonnerat in his Voyage aux hides orientates 

 and Voyage a Ico Nouvelle Guinee, severally published at Paris in 1772 

 and 1776. But the most striking example of compilation was that 

 exhibited by J. F. Gmelin, who in 1788 commenced what he called the 

 Thirteenth Edition of the celebrated Systema Naturae, which obtained so 

 wide a circulation that, in the comparative rarity of the original, the 

 additions of this editor have been very frequently quoted, even by expert 

 naturalists, as though they were the work of the author himself. Gmelin 

 availed himself of every publication he could, but he perhaps found his 

 richest booty in the labours of Latham, neatly condensing his English 

 descriptions into Latin diagnoses, and bestowing on them binomial names. 

 Hence it is that Gmelin appears as the authority for so much of the 

 nomenclature now in use. He took many liberties with the details of 



^ The Naturalist's Miscellany or Vivarium Naturale, iu English and Latin, of 

 Shaw and Nodder, the former being the author, the latter the draughtsman and 

 engraver, was begun in 1789 and carried on till Shaw's death, forming twenty-four 

 volumes. It contains figures of more than 280 Birds, but very poorly executed. In 

 1814 a sequel, The Zoological Miscellany, was begun by Leach, Nodder continuing to 

 do the jjlates. This was completed iu 1817, and forms three volumes with 149 plates, 

 27 of which represent Birds. 



^ Of this work only fifty copies were printed, and it is one of the rarest known to 

 the ornithologist. Only two copies are believed to exist in England, one in the 

 British Museum, the other in private hands. It was reprinted in 1874 by Mr. 

 Tegetmeier. 



^ This was reprinted iu 1882 by the Willughby Society. 



