14 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



Linnaeus's work, but left the classification, at least of the Birds, as it was 

 — a few new genera excepted.^ 



During all this time little had been done in studying the internal 

 structure of Birds since the works of Goiter already mentioned ; ^ but the 

 foundations of the science of Embryology had been laid by the investiga- 

 tions into the development of the chick by the great Harvey. Between 

 1666 and 1669 Perrault edited at Paris eight accounts of the dissection 

 by Du Verney of as many species of Birds, which, translated into English, 

 were published by the Royal Society in 1702, under the title of The 

 Natural History of Animals. After the death of the two anatomists just 

 named, another series of similar descriptions of eight other species was 

 found among their papers, and the whole were published in the M^moires 

 of the French Academy of Sciences in 1733 and 1734. But in 1681 

 Gerard Blasius had brought out at Amsterdam an Anatome Animalium, 

 containing the results of all the dissections of animals that he could find ; 

 and the second part of this book, treating of Volatilia, makes a respectable 

 show of more than 120 closely-printed quarto pages, though nearly two- 

 thirds is devoted to a treatise De Ovo et Pullo, containing among other 

 things a reprint of Harvey's researches, and the scientific rank of the 

 whole book may be inferred from Bats being still classed with Birds. In 

 1720 Valentini published, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, his Amfhitheatrum 

 Zootomicum, in which again most of the existing accounts of the anatomy 

 of Birds were reprinted. But these and many other contributions,^ made 

 until nearly the close of the eighteenth century, though highly meritorious, 

 were unconnected as a whole, and it is plain that no conception of what 

 it was in the power of Comparative Anatomy to set forth had occurred to 

 the most diligent dissectors. This privilege was reserved for Georges 

 Cuvier, who in 1798 published at Paris his Tableau de'mentaire de Vliistoire 

 naturelle des Animaux, and thus laid the foundation of a thorough and 

 hitherto unknown mode of appreciating the value of the various groups 

 of the Animal Kingdom. Yet his first attempt was a mere sketch.* 

 Though he made a perceptible advance on the classification of Linnreus, 

 at that time predominant, it is now easy to see in how many ways — want 

 of sufficient material being no doubt one of the chief — Cuvier failed to 

 produce a really natural arrangement. His principles, however, are those 

 which must still guide taxonomers, notwithstanding that they have in so 

 great a degree overthrown the entire scheme which he propounded. 

 Cuvier's arrangement of the Class Aves is now seen to be not very much 



^ Daudin's inifiuislied Traite elementaire et complet cVOrnithologie appeared at 

 Paris iu 1800, and tlierefore is the last of these general works published in the 

 eighteenth century. 



^ A succinct notice of the older works on Ornithotomj^ is given by Prof. Selenka in 

 the introduction to that portion of Bronn's Klassen iind Ordmmgen des Thierreichs 

 relating to Birds (pp. 1-9) published in 1869 ; and Prof. Carus's Geschichte der 

 Zoologie, published in 1872, may also be usefully consulted for further information 

 on this and other heads. 



^ The treatises of the two Bartholinis and Borrichius published at Copenhagen 

 deserve mention if only to record the activity of Danish anatomists in those days. 



^ It had no effect on Lacepede, who in the following year added a Tableau 

 Methodique containing a classification of Birds to his Discours d' OuvcHure [Mem. de 

 VInstitut, iii. pp. 454-468, 503-519). 



