170 REPORT — 1844. 



Report on the recent Progress and present State of Ornithology. 

 By H. E. Strickland, M.A., F.G.S., Sfc. 



Introduction. 



The object of this report is to give a sketch of the recent progress, present 

 state, and future prospects of that branch of zoology whicli treats of the class 

 of Birds. As the chief, indeed the only method by which this study can be 

 developed into a science, consists either in describing and depicting the cha- 

 racter and habits of this class of animals in books, or in preserving and 

 arranging the objects themselves in museums, I shall review in succession the 

 progress which has been made in these two departments of the subject, and 

 shall conclude with a few remarks on the desiderata of ornithology. 



In treating of the bibliography of ornithology, however, it is not necessary 

 to go into much detail respecting the works of older date than about fifteen 

 years ago. The ornithological works of the last and the earlier part of the 

 present century are well known to most naturalists, and the reader will find 

 ample and for the most part just criticisms respecting them in Cuvier's 

 ' Regne Animal,' vol. iv., Temminck's ' Manuel d'Ornithologie,' Swainson's 

 ' Classification of Birds,' and his ' Taxidermy and Bibliography,' Wood's 

 ' Ornithologist's Text Book,' Wilson's article Ornithology in the ' Encyclo- 

 paedia Britannica,' Rev. L.Jenyns's 'Report on Zoology,' 1834, Burmeister's 

 article Ortiithologie in Ersch and Gruber's ' Encyclopiidie der Wissenschaften,' 

 and other sources. I shall therefore only give such a cursory notice of some 

 of the earlier writers on ornithology as will serve to introduce the more le- 

 gitimate subject of this report. 



It may perhaps surprise those who are not very conversant with the subject 

 to be told that ornithology is in a less advanced state than many other de- 

 partments of zoology. Persons who are accustomed to regard " stufied 

 birds" as constituting the most usual and most attractive objects of a public 

 museum, will not readily admit that the various species of Mammalia, Fish, 

 Insects, Mollusca, and even Infusoria, are more accurately determined and 

 more perfectly methodized than the class of Birds. Such is however the 

 case, and although in the last few years ornithology has certainly made a 

 very marked progress, yet it is still considerably in the rear of its sister sci- 

 ences. 



This backward condition of ornithology must be attributed in great mea- 

 sure to the pertinacity with which its followers during many years adhered 

 to the letter instead of to the spirit of Linnaeus's writings. In this country 

 the venerable Latham, who for half a centuiy was regarded as the great 

 oracle of ornithology, persisted so late as 1824 in classifying his 5000 species 

 of birds in the same number of genera (with very few additions) as were em- 

 ployed by Linnaeus for a fifth part of those species. The consequence was 

 that many of the genera in Latham's last work contain each several hundred 

 species, frequently presenting the most heterogeneous characters, and massed 

 together without any, or with only very rude, attempts at further subdivision. 

 Shaw's ' General Zoology* was, in a great measure, a servile copy of Latham's 

 ' Ornithology,' and these two works formed for many years almost the only 

 text-books on the subject. On the continent meanwhile, those who were not 

 disciples of Linnaeus, transferred their allegiance to Buffon, and often exceeded 

 that author in their contempt for systematic arrangement and uniform no- 

 menclature. 



Cuvier, indeed, as early as 1798, had sketched out an improved classification 

 of birds in his ' Tableau Elementaire de I'Histoire Naturelle,' repeated with 



