INTRODUCTION 43 



edition of the first volume being also issued (1833), for the author, having 

 yielded to the pressure of the " Quinarian " doctrines then in vogue, 

 thought it necessary to adjust his classification accordingly, and it must 

 be admitted that for information the second edition is best. In 1828 

 Fleming brought out his History of British Animals (8vo), in which the 

 Birds are treated at considerable length Qjp. 41-146), though not with 

 great success. In 1835 Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) produced an 

 excellent Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, a volume (8vo) executed 

 with great scientific skill, the Birds again receiving due attention ([)p. 

 49-286), and the descriptions of the various species being as accurate as 

 they are ^terse.^ In the same year began the Coloured Illustrations of 

 British Birds and their Eggs of H. L. Meyer (4to), which was completed in 

 1843, whereof a second edition (7 vols. 8vo, 1842-50) was brought out, 

 and subsequently (1852-57) a reissue of the latter. In 1836 appeared 

 Eyton's History of the rarer British Birds, intended as a sequel to Bewick's 

 well-known volumes, to which no important additions had been made 

 since the issue of 1821. The year 1837 saw the beginning of two 

 remarkable works by Macgillivray and Yarrell respectively, and each 

 entituled A History of British Birds. Of the first, undoubtedly the more 

 original and in many respects the more minutely accurate, mention will 

 again have to be made, and, save to state that its five volumes were not 

 completed till 1852, nothing more needs now to be added. The second 

 unquestionably became the standard work on British Ornithology, a fact 

 due in part to its numerous illustrations, many of them indeed ill drawn, 

 though all carefully engraved, but much more to the breadth of the 

 author's views and the judgment with which they were set forth. In 

 practical acquaintance with the internal structure of Birds, and in the 

 perception of its importance in classification, he was certainly not behind 

 his rival ; but he well knew that his public in a Book of Birds not only 

 did not want a series of anatomical treatises, but would even resent their 

 introduction. He had the art to conceal his art, and his work was there- 

 lore a success, while the other was unhappily a failure. Yet with all his 

 knowledge he was deficient in some of the qualities which a great 

 naturalist ought to possess. His conception of what his work should be 

 seems to have been perfect, his execution was not equal to the conception. 

 However, he was not the first nor will he be the last to fall short in this 

 respect. For him it must be said that, whatever may have been done by 

 the generation of British ornithologists now becoming advanced in life, 

 he educated them to do it ; nay, his influence even extends to a younger 

 generation still, though they may hardly be aware of it. Of Yarrell's 

 work in three volumes, a second edition was published in 1845, a third 

 in 1856, and a fourth, begun in 1871, and almost wholly rewritten, was 

 finished in 1885 by Mr. Saunders, who in 1888 and 1889, carrying out 

 the suggestion of a brother ornithologist, skilfully condensed the whole 

 into a single volume, forming a useful Manual of British Birds, illustrated 

 by the same figures as the larger work. Of other compilations based upon 

 it, without which they could not have been composed, there is no need to 



^ A series of MS. notes which he gave to the Cambridge Museum shews that he 

 was largely aided by his brother-in-law Henslow, the botanist. 



