22 DICTIONAR V OF BIRDS 



former. Both kinds increase yearly, and the desponding mind may fear 

 the possibility of its favourite study expiring through being smothered by 

 its own literature. Without anticipating such a future disaster, and look- 

 ing merely to what has gone before, it is necessary here to premise that, 

 in the oljservations which immediately follow, treatises which have 

 appeared in the publications of learned bodies or in other scientific 

 periodicals must, except they be of prime importance, be hereinafter 

 passed unnoticed ; but their omission will be the less felt because the 

 more recent of those of a " faunal " character are generally mentioned in 

 the text (Geographical Distribution) under the different countries with 

 ■which they deal, while reference to the older of these treatises is usually 

 given by the vi^riters of the newer. Still it seems advisable here to 

 furnish some connected account of the progress made in the ornitho- 

 logical knowledge of those countries in which the readers of the present 

 volume may be supposed to take the most lively interest — namely, 

 the British Islands and those parts of the European continent which lie 

 nearest to them or are most commonly sought by travellers, the 

 Dominion of Canada and the United States of America, the British West 

 Indies, South Africa, India, together with Australia and New Zealand. 

 The more important Monographs, again, will usually be found cited in 

 the series of special articles contained in this work, though, as will be 

 immediately perceived, there are some so-styled Monographs, which by 

 reason of the changed views of classification that at present obtain, have 

 lost their restricted character, and for all practical purposes have now to 

 be regarded as general works. 



It will perhaps be most convenient to begin by mentioning some of 

 these last, and in particular a number of them which appeared at Paris 

 early in this century. First in order of them is the Histoire Naturelle 

 d'une partie d'Oiseaux nouveaux et rares de VAme'rique et des Indes, a folio 

 volume 1 published in 1801 by Le Vaillant. This is devoted to the 

 very distinct and not nearly-allied groups of Hornbills and of Birds 

 which for want of .a better name we call " Chatterers," and is illus- 

 trated, like those works of which a notice immediately follows, by 

 coloured plates, done in what was then considered to be the highest style 

 of art and by the best draughtsmen procurable. The first volume of a 

 Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets, a companion work by the same author, 

 appeared in the same year, and is truly a Monograph, since the Parrots 

 constitute a Family of Birds so naturally severed from all others, that 

 there has rarely been anything else confounded with them. The second 

 volume came out in 1805, and a third was issued in 1837-38 long after 

 the death of its predecessor's author, by Bourjot St.-Hilaire. Between 

 1803 and 1806 Le Vaillant also published in just the same style two 

 volumes with the title of Histoire Naturelle des Oiseavx de Paradis et des 

 Rolliers, suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barhus, an assemblage of forms, 

 which, miscellaneous as it is, was surpassed in incongruity by a fourth 

 work on the same scale, the Histoire Naturelle des Promerops et des 

 GuSpiers, des Couroucous et des Touracos, for herein are found Jays, Wax- 



^ There is also an issue of this, as of the same author's other works, ou large 

 quarto paper. 



