INTRODUCTION. • xi 



but on that of many correspondents in various parts of the country, of 

 wliom Sir Thomas Brown, of Norwich, Francis Jessop, of Broom Hall near 

 Sheffield, and Ralph Johnson, of Greta Bridge in Tcesdalc, are specially 

 worthy of note. In 1738-40 Albinos ' Natural History of Birds ' appeared, 

 and in 1743-60 Edwards's 'Natural History of Birds ' and ^Gleanings of 

 Natural History ' followed — quarto works, with coloured plates of divers 

 degrees of merit. Neither of these works professes to be exhaustive, nor 

 are the birds treated of arranged in any order ; the subject is viewed from 

 the museum rather than from the field point of view ; but many of the 

 plates, especially those of Edwards, are interesting and sufficiently accurate 

 to determine the vague diagnoses of subsequent writers. 



1760-1809. The half-century between these two dates was a very eventful 

 one in British ornithology. The appearance of such important works on 

 the birds of the world as the various editions of the ' Systema Naturse ' 

 of Linn^us (1735-1766), the ' Ornithologia ' of Brisson (1760), and the 

 ' Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux ' of BufFon and Montbeillard (1770-1783), 

 followed by the publications of their British rival Latham, the ' General 

 Synopsis of Birds' (1781-1801) and the 'Index Ornithologicus ' (1790), 

 placed the study of ornithology on a much more systematic basis than had 

 been previously possible. But the influence on the study of birds in the 

 British Islands of these celebrated publications was small compared with 

 that of two unambitious books which, in spite of their apparent insignifi- 

 cance, have brought more recruits to the study of British ornithology than 

 any works which have appeared either before or since. In 1789 the first 

 edition of Gilbert White's ' Natural History of Selborne ' captivated the 

 British public by the simple charm of the unaffected love of Nature which 

 breathes in every page ; whilst in 1797 the first edition of Bewick's ' History 

 of British Birds ' fascinated them by the artistic excellence of its little wood- 

 cuts in spite of the poverty of its letterpress. During the half -century 

 unimportant works on British birds were written by Walcott (1789), 

 Donovan (1794-1819), Lewin (1796-1801), and Turton (1807), in addition 

 to local faunas; but two books deserve special notice. In 1766 the large 

 folio edition of Pennant's 'British Zoology' was published — a book re- 

 markable for the accuracy of its coloured plates and of its too short text, 

 which derives an additional interest from the fact that its author was one 

 of the two ornithologists to whom Gilbert White addressed his celebrated 

 letters on the Natural History of Selborne. The other important work 

 on British birds of the half-century was Colonel Montagu's 'Ornitho- 

 logical Dictionary ' (1802-13). The value of this book is somewhat marred 

 by its alphabetical arrangement ; but it is the work of a " field ornithologist," 

 and contains much valuable detail, the result, for the most part, of original 

 observation. 



1810-1834. During the next quarter of a century ornithology was by 



62 



