44 DICTION AR V OF BIRDS 



speak. 1 One of the few appearing since, with the same scope, that are not 

 borrowed is Jardine's Birds of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols. 8vo, 

 1838-43), forming part of his Naturalist's Library ; and Gould's Birds 

 of Great Britain has been already mentioned.^ Two imposing folios, with 

 very good plates by Mr. Keulemans, were issued with the title of Rough 

 Notes on Birds in the British Islands during 1881 to 1887, by the late 

 Mr. Booth (whose " Museum " is one of the popular sights of Brighton), 

 and contain a great number of personal observations, though few of any 

 novelty or value, while as a record of butchery the work fortunately stands 

 alone. Lord Lilford's Coloured Figures of the Birds of the British Islands, 

 begvm in 1885 and now nearly completed, has given great pleasure to 

 many lovers of Birds, by whom such a series of plates was strongly 

 desired, for they are generally good, and some of the latest, by Mr. 

 Thorburn, are exquisite.^ 



The good effects of "Faunal" works such as those named in the fore- 

 going rapid survey none can doubt. " Every kingdom, every province, 

 should have its own monographer," wrote Gilbert White, and experience 

 has proved the truth of his assertion. It is from the labours of mono- 



•' Yet two of them have attained great popularity, and have exerted such an in- 

 fluence in this country, that as a matter of history their authors, both deceased, must 

 here be named, though I would willingly pass them over, for I have not a word to 

 say in favour of either. By every well-informed ornithologist the History of British 

 Birds of Mr. Morris has long been known to possess no authority ; but about Mr. 

 Seebohm's volumes with the same title there is much difference of opinion, some hold- 

 ing them in high esteem. The greater part of their text, when it is correct, will be 

 found on examination to be a paraphrase of what others had already %vritten, for 

 even the information given on the author's personal experience, which was doubtless 

 considerable, extends little or no further. But all this is kept studiously out of sight, 

 and the whole is so skilfully dressed as to make the stalest observations seem novel 

 — a merit, I am assured, in some eyes. Of downright errors and wild conjectures there 

 are enough, and they are confidently asserted with the misuse of language and absence 

 of reasoning power that mark all the author's writings, though the air of scientific 

 treatment assumed throughout has deluded many an unwary reader. 



^ Though contravening our plan, we must for its great merits notice here the late 

 Mr. More's series of papers in The Jbis for 1865, "On the Distribution of Birds in 

 Great Britain during the Nesting Season." 



^ Local ornithologies are far too numerous to be named at length. Fortunately 

 Mr. Christy has published a Catalogue of them {Zool. 1890, pp. 247-267, and 

 separately, London: 1891), and only a few of the most remarkable and the most 

 recent need here be mentioned. 'The first three volumes of Thompson's Natural 

 History of Ireland (1849-51) cannot be passed over, as containing an excellent 

 account, to equal which no approach has since been made, of the Birds of that 

 country, though there are many important papers by later Irish ornithologists, as 

 Messrs. Barrett-Hamilton, Blake-Knox, H. L. Jameson, R. Paterson, Ussher and 

 Warren, and conspicuously by Mr. Barrington. For North Britain, Robert Gray's 

 Birds of the West of Scotland (1871), and the series of district Vertebrate Faunas, begun 

 by Messrs. Harvie-Bro^vn and T. E. Buckley, of which 7 volumes have now appeared — 

 treating of (1) Sutherland, Caithness and West Cromarty, (2) Outer Hebrides, (3) Argyll 

 and Inner Hebrides, (4) lona and Mull (this by Graham), (5) Orkney and (6 and 7) 

 Moray — while others, as Dee and Shetland, are in progress, calls for especial remark, as 

 does Mr. Muirhead's Birds of Beru-ickshire (2 vols. 1889-96) ; but for want of space 

 many meritorious papers in journals, by Alston, Dalgleish, W. Evans, Lumsden and others 

 must here be unnoticed. The local works on English Birds are still more numerous, 

 but among them may be especially named the oldest of all, Tucker's unfinished Orni- 

 thologia Danmoniensis (4to, 1809), an ambitious work of which not even the whole of 



