30 



THE OSPKEY. 



very distinguished naturalists. This is rather 

 remarkable in view of that gentleman's knowl- 

 edge of the personality of European naturalists, 

 which is unquestionably great. 



Three letters are entered under the name "St. 

 Hilaire, Geoffrey." The family name of the 

 naturalist in question, however, was GEOFFROY 

 Saint-Hilaire. From tlie absence of any other 

 name it may be assumed the correspondent of 

 Swainson was Etienne (1772-1844), celebrated 

 formerly for his morphological ideas and his 

 disputation in 1830 with Cuvier, which excited 

 the lively interest of Goethe. Geoffroy Saint- 

 Hilaire was addressed generally in social 

 intercourse as M. Geoffroy only and Cuvier 

 frequently referred to him in print even as M. 

 Geoffroy. His son. Isidore (1805-1861), little less 

 celebrated than the father, was quite helpful to 

 Swainson during his visit to Paris. Swainson 

 remarks "M. Isidore Geoff roy, in particular gave 

 up to me his own little study in the museum." 

 This leads us to note that Dr. Gunther, appar- 

 ently, did not know of Swainson's autobiog- 

 raphy. Anyway, he has not alluded to it, and 

 only consulted the biographical notice in 

 the Proceeding's of the Linuean Society for 

 1856. 



Among the letters are a number I five) appar- 

 ently from Ferdinand J. L'Herminier to the 

 Rev. Landsowne Guilding from 1813 to 1819. 

 These have been brought together under the 

 name "Herminier G," in the "Catalogue," but 

 in his address Dr. Gunther, correctly probably, 

 treats of them as by "Ferdinand L'Herminier," 

 and pays a deserved tribute to that most merito- 

 rious but neglected investigator. He aptly 

 alludes to him as "a man of wide and sound in- 

 formation, and an accurate observer, who after- 

 wards made himself known by his researches 

 into the ossification of the Avian sternum." 

 We may add that his memoir published in 1827 

 on the classification of birds based on their 

 sterna was greatly in advance not only of any 

 taxonotnic work on birds published up to that 

 time, but for many years afterwards. It was, 

 for example, far — very far— in advance of the 

 final classification published by Swainson in 

 1836-37. The proper place for his name in an 

 alphabetical arrangement is under L and not H. 

 Under L'Herminier his contributions are cata- 



logued in the Catalogue of the Royal Society 

 and other reliable bibliographies. 



The ornithologist Bonaparte, it may also be 

 noted, is called by Dr. Gunther "C. Lucien" 

 Bonaparte. He varied his name considerably, 

 but never wrote out in full the middle element 

 at the expense of the first one, that is, he never 

 called himself C. Lucien Bonaparte — in print at 

 least. In his first papers he used only the name 

 Charles Bonaparte; later he adopted the style 

 Charles L. Bonaparte; in many he spelled in 

 full the first and second names, varying the 

 form according- to the language --French or 

 Italian. In his communication to the Transac. 

 tions of the Linnean Society of London (1837) 

 he only used the initials C. L. The well-known 

 Lucien Bonaparte of the second generation was 

 a younger brother — Louis Lucien Bonaparte, 

 born 1813 — as well-known in philological science 

 as Charles was in natural science. Charles 

 (born 1803) commenced his long scientific career 

 in the United States with a memoir on stormy 

 petrels in 1823, and his ornithological work up 

 to 1830 was published in America. 



The American correspondents of Swainson 

 were John Abbot, the entomologist; John James 

 Audubon: his son, Victor Gifford Audubon 

 (1834); J. D. Clifford of Lexington. Ky.; William 

 Cooper of New York; Stephen Elliott of Charles- 

 ton; Samuel Stehman Haldeman of Philadel- 

 phia; Richard Harlan of Philadelphia; John 

 Jay, the conchologist of New York; Isaac Lea 

 of Philadelphia; John [E.] LeConte, then of 

 New York; George Ord of Philadelphia; Titian 

 Ramsey Peale of Philadelphia: Constantine 

 Samuel Rafinesque: John T. Sharpless of Phila- 

 delphia: Lyman Spalding of New York: J. 

 Stewart of New York; John Torrey of New York, 

 and William Wagner of Philadelphia. There 

 are also letters from R. Haines as Secretary of 

 the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadel- 

 phia. |23 April 1830,) and C. C. Sheppard, Sec- 

 retary of the Quebec Literary Society, il l > Nov. 

 1836, i announcing Swainson's election as corres- 

 ponding or honorary member of the societies. 

 Almost all of these were well-known natural- 

 ists of the second quarter of the century. Phil- 

 adelphia, it will be seen, was the city from which 

 most wrote. Boston, strangely enough, was not 

 represented by a correspondent. 



