136 



THE OSPREY. 



WILLIAM SWAINSON AND HIS TIMES.— X. 



By Theodore Gill, Washington, D. C. 



{Continued from Vol. V, page 72.) 



In 1832 Swainson had correspondence with 

 Charles L- Bonaparte, Prince of Masignano and 

 Canino then resident at Rome, relative to draw- 

 ing plates for the latter's work. Bonaparte, in 

 a letter of 6th April, 1832, agreed to Swainson's 

 charge, three guineas a plate. Bonaparte also 

 agreed to bring a copy of the bird volume of the 

 Fauna Boreali-Americana. 



THE CABINET CVCLOP.EDIA. 



We must now pass on to the work which occu- 

 pied the last years of Swainson's life in Britain 

 and which gave him the greater part of his 

 living. This was the preparation of the series 

 of volumes for which he had contracted with the 

 great firm of Longmans & Co., of London, to 

 furnish for "The Cabinet Cyclopaedia" edited 

 by the Rev. Dionysins Lardner. 



The editor of the "Cabinet Cyclopaedia," Dr. 

 Dionysins Lardner, a celebrated character of the 

 time, "had resolved to engage a party of natu- 

 ralists to execute the zoological series; and a 

 long list of names had been given him, many of 

 the highest repute, who were to take the several 

 portions." Swainson has not named any of 

 these, but from another source we may learn 

 who the}' were. 



A list of 32 gentlemen who had promised to 

 contribute to the Cabinet Cyclopaedia was given 

 in an announcement b}' Longman & Co., in the 

 Literary Gazette for November 7, 1829, (p. 734). 

 The "party of naturalists to execute the zoolo- 

 gical series" included nine gentlemen; their 

 spheres were not stated, but g'uesses as to what 

 they might have written about are indicated 

 within parentheses. The nine were Thus. Bell 

 (Reptiles?), Edw. Turner Bennett (Mammals?), 

 Rev. Jno. Fleming (Philosophy of Zoology?), 

 J. G. Children (Insects, etc.?'), T. Horsfield 

 (Birds?), Win. Sharp MacLeay (Insects?), Geo. B. 

 Sowerby (Molluscs?), N. A. Vigors (Birds), and 

 and Wm. Yarrell (Fishes). 



Swainson fancied that "the unfriendly feeling 

 entertained towards [him | by an individual, 

 whom the editor empowered to organise this 

 undertaking, was . . . the reason why [his] assis- 

 tance was never asked. Promises, indeed, were 

 continually made to the editor that some of 

 these volumes would be 'soon' ready; but after 

 waiting near three years, not even one was 

 forthcoming. Finding, therefore, that, from 

 some unexplained cause, nothing was produced 

 from this imposing array of great names, 

 recourse was had to the only naturalist of the 

 least repute, whose services had not been thought 

 worth securing. To make 'a long story short', a 

 proposition was made to [him], that the Ency- 

 clopaedia of Zoology should be remodelled 

 and transformed into the Cabinet of Natural 

 History." He "foresaw that this would almost 

 impose on [him] the necessity of rewriting the 

 whole work; but felt flattered in being thought 

 equal to the task," and "the agreement was 

 therefore concluded". 



The first of the volumes published in the 

 series was the Introductory one which appeared 

 in 1834 and was entitled "A Preliminary Dis- 

 course on the Study of Natural History". 

 Although there is much of interest in it we 

 must pass it by. 



The first was soon followed by a second 

 volume published in 1835; it was "A Treatise 

 on the Geography and Classification of Ami- 

 mals". 



the circular Theory. 



In this he gave art elaborate exposition of 

 his views of classification and of his modification 



of the "circular theory of MacLeay. An out- 

 line of Swainson's views on his first "adoption 

 of quinarianism" and then published in 1824 

 has already been given (OSPREY, vol. 4, p. 167). 

 His latest and most authoritative statement is 

 to be found in "A Treatise on the Geography 

 and Classification of Animals" published in 1835. 

 His ideas were so strange that fear of a charge 

 of misrepresentation will render expedient - a 

 summary in his own language. 



He entered upon a superficial historical survey 

 of Zoology and gave a more detailed sketch of 

 the classification on circular and quinary princi- 

 ples proposed by William Sharp MacLeay in his 

 "Horae Entomologicae" published in 1821. 

 After this review he enunciates the following 

 conclusions (p. 212). 



"On a careful consideration, therefore, of the 

 principles of natural arrangement developed by 

 our author, they may be all comprised under 

 one or other of the following: — 1. The demon- 

 stration of the circular nature of affinities in 

 natural groups; 2. The component parts of 

 every group being regulated, in their variation, 

 by some definite number; and, 3. The system 

 of representation, by which the contents of 

 one natural group are represented analogically 

 by the contents of other groups. This last law, 

 indeed, was not suspected to be universal; but 

 merely confined to one in every fifth group. 

 The theory of analogy and affinity conies also 

 under this latter head; being in fact, one of the 

 tests or proofs to be applied. Such are the 

 fundamental principles of classification con- 

 tained in the Hone Entomologies; the modifi- 

 cations which they subsequently received from 

 its author, will be presently stated". 



He first presents his modification of the cir- 

 cular theory and his own peculiar views in the 

 following statement (p. 224). 



"In submitting to the zoological world — for 

 the first time in a connected form — the result 

 of our researches 011 the first principles of the 

 NATURAL SYSTEM, it seems the most simple and 

 preferable method to state them, as heretofore*, 

 in the form of distinct propositions, which we 

 shall endeavour to substantiate b}' subsequent 

 details. 



*See Fauna Boreali-Americaua (Nor(nerii Zoology), vol. ii. pref. p. 4S. 



