INTRODUCTION 43 



graphers of this kind, but on a more extended scale, when brought together, 

 that the valuable results follow which inform us as to Geographical 

 Distribution. Important as they are, they do not of themselves con- 

 stitute Ornithology as a science ; and an enquiry, no less wide and far 

 more recondite, still remains — that having for its object the discovery of 

 the natural groups of Birds, and the mutual relations of those groups, 

 which has always been of the deepest interest, and to it we must now recur. 

 But nearly all the authors above named, it will have been seen, trod 

 the same ancient paths, and in the works of scarcely one of them had 

 any new spark of intelligence been struck out to enlighten the gloom 

 which surrounded the investigator. It is now for us to trace the rise of 

 the present more advanced school of ornithologists whose labours, pre- 

 liminary as we must still regard them to be, yet give signs of far greater 

 promise. It would probably be unsafe to place its origin further back 

 than a few scattered hints contained in the ' Pterographische Fragmente ' 

 of Christian Ludwig Nitzsch, published in the Magazin fiir den neuesten 

 Zustand der Naturkunde (edited by Voigt) for May 1806 (xi. pp. 393-417), 

 and even these might be left to pass unnoticed, were it not that we recog- 

 nize in them the germ of the great work which the same admirable 

 zoologist subsequently accomplished. In these " Fragments," apparently 

 his earliest productions, we find him engaged on the subject with which 

 his name will always be especially identified, the structure and arrange- 

 ment of the feathers that form the proverbial characteristic of Birds. 

 But, though the observations set forth in this essay were sufficiently 

 novel, there is not much in them that at the time would have attracted 

 attention, for perhaps no one — not even the author himself — could have 

 then foreseen to what important end they would, in conjunction with 

 other investigations, lead future naturalists ; but they are marked by the 

 close and patient determination that eminently distinguishes all the work 

 of their author ; and, since it will be necessary for us to return to this 



the somewhat turgid Introduction was published ; but the two parts printed shew the 

 author to have been a physiologist, anatomist and outdoor-observer far beyond most 

 men of his time, beside being of a philosophical turn, well acquainted with literature, 

 and an agTeeable writer. At a long interval follow Dillwyn's Fauna and Mora of 

 Stvansea (1848) ; Knox's Ornithological Rambles in Sussex (1849) ; Mr. Harting's 

 Birds of Middlesex (1866) ; Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk (3 vols. 1866-90, completed 

 by Mr. Southwell) ; Cecil Smith's Birds of Somerset (1869) and of Guernsey (1879) ; 

 Mr. CoTdea,nx's Birds of the Jlicmber District (1872) ; Hancock's Birds of Korthu7nber- 

 land and Durham (1874) ; The Birds of Nottinghamshire by Messrs. Sterland and 

 Whitaker (1879) ; Eodd's Birds of Cornwall, edited by Mr. Harting (1880) ; the 

 Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire (1881), in which the Birds are by Mr. W. E. Clarke ; 

 ChurchiU Babington's Birds of Suffolk (1884-6) ; and Mr. A. C. Smith's Birds of 

 Wiltshire (1887). Since the publication of Mr. Christy's Catalogue a few more have 

 to be briefly mentioned, and first his own volume on the Birds of Essex (1890), while 

 those of Sussex were treated in 1891 by Mr. Borrer ; Worcestershire (1891) by Mr. 

 Willis Bund; Devonshire (1891) by Mr. Pidsley and (1892) by Messrs. D'Urban and 

 Mathew (Suppl. and fed. 2, 1895); Lakeland (1892) by Mr. H. A. Macpherson ; 

 Lancashire (ed. 2, 1893) by Mr. F. S. Mitchell ; London (1893) by Mr. Swann ; 

 Derbyshire (1893) by Mr. Whitlock, and finally Northamptonshire (2 vols. 1895) by 

 Lord Lilford. The papers in journals are countless, but almost all up to the time of 

 compilation are contained in the excellent List of Faunal Publications relating to 

 British Birds, published in 1880 by Dr. Coues [Proc. V, S. Nat. Mus. ii. pp, 

 359-482). 



