18 



ORNITHOLOGY 



Rennie brought out a modified edition of it (reissued in 1833), and 

 Newman another in 1866 (reissued in 1883); but those who wish 

 to know the author's views had better consult the original. Next 

 in order come the very inferior British Ornithology of Graves 



(3 vols. 8vo, 1811-21), and a work with the sain.' title by Hunt 

 (3 vols. 8vo, 1815-22), published at Norwich, but never finished. 

 Then we have Selby's Illustrations of British Ornithology, two 

 folio volumes of coloured plates engraved by himself, between 1S21 

 and 1S33, with letterpress also in two volumes (8vo, 1825-33), a 

 second edition of the first volume being also issued (1S33), fur the 

 author, having yielded to the pressure of the " Quinarian " doctrines 

 then in vogue, thought it necessary to adjust his classification 

 accordingly, and it must be admitted that for information the 

 second edition is best. In 1828 Fleming brought out his History 

 of British Animals (Svo), in which the Birds are treated at con- 

 siderable length (pp. 41-146), though not with great success. In 

 1835 Mr Jenyns (now Blomefield) produced an excellent Manual 

 of British Vertebrate Animals, a volume (8vo) executed with great 

 scientific skill, the Birds again receiving due attention (pp. 49-286), 

 and the descriptions of the various species being as accurate as they 

 are terse. In the same year began the Coloured Illustrations of 

 British Birds ami their Eggs of H. L. Meyer (4to), which was 

 completed in 1843, whereof a second edition (7 vols. 8vo, 1842-50) 

 was brought out, and subsequently (1852-57) a reissue of the 

 latter. In 1836 appeared Eyton's History of the rarer British 

 Birds, intended as a sequel to Bewick's well-known volumes, to 

 which no important additions had been made since the issue of 

 1821. The year 1837 saw the beginning of two remarkable works 

 by Macgillivray and Yarrell respectively, and each entituled A 

 History of British Birds. Of the first, undoubtedly the more 

 original and in many respects the more minutely accurate, mention 

 will again have to lie made (page 24), and, save to state that its five 

 volumes were not completed till 1852, nothing more needs now to 

 be added. The second has unquestionably become the standard 

 work on British Ornithology, a fact due in part to its numerous 

 illustrations, many of them indeed ill drawn, though all carefully 

 engraved, hut much more to the breadth of the author's views and 

 the judgment with which they were set forth. In practical acquaint- 

 ance with the internal structure of Birds, and in the perception of 

 its importance in classification, he was certainly not lirhind his 

 rival ; but he well knew that the British public in a Book of Birds 

 not only did not want a series of anatomical treatises, but would 

 even resent their introduction. He had the art to conceal his art, 

 and his work was therefore a success, while the other was unhappily 

 a failure. Yet with all his knowledge he was deficient in some of 

 tie- qualities which a great naturalist ought to possess. His concep- 

 tion of what, his work should be seems to have been perfect, his 

 exe< ntion wis no! equal to the conception. However, he was not 

 the first nor will he be the last to fall short in this respect. For 

 him it must be said that, whatever may have been done by the 

 generation of British ornithologists now becoming advanced in life, 

 he educated them to do it ; nay, his influence even extends to a 

 younger generation still, though they may hardly be aware of it. 

 Of Yarrell's work in three volumes, a second edition was published 

 in 1S45, a third in 1856, and a fourth, begun in 1871, and almost 

 wholly rewritten, is still unfinished. Of the compilations based 

 upon this work, without which they could not have been composed, 

 there is no need to speak. One of the few appearing since, with 

 the same scope, that are not borrowed is Jardine's Birds if Great 

 Britain, ami Ireland (4 vols. Svo, 1838-43), forming part of his 

 Naturalist's Library ; and Gould's Birds of Great Britain has beeu 

 already mentioned. 1 



A considerable number of local works deserving of notice have 

 also to be named. The first three volumes of Thompson's Natural 

 History if Ireland (Svo, 1849-51) contain an excellent account of 

 the Birds of that island, and Mr Watters's Birds of Ireland (Svo, 

 1853) has also to lie mentioned. For North Britain there is Mr 

 liobert Gray's Birds if the West of Scotland (8vo, 1871), which 

 virtually is an account of those of almost the whole of that part of 

 the kingdom. To these may be added Dunn's Ornithologist's Guide 

 I, Orkney and Shetland (Svo, 1837), the unfinished Historia 

 Naturalis Orcadensis of Baikieand Heddle (Svo, 1S4S), and Saxby's 

 Birds of Shetland (Svo, 1874), while the sporting works of Charles 

 St John contain much information on the Ornithology of the 

 Highlands. 2 The local works on English Birds are still more 

 numerous, but among them may be especially named Dillwyn's 

 Fauna and Flora of Swansea (1848), Mr Knox's Ornitholagiml. 

 Rambles in Sussex (1849), Mr Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk 

 (1S66-70), Mr Cecil Smith's Birds of Somerset (1869) and Birds of 



1 Though contravening our plan, we must for its great merits notice 

 here Mr More's series of papers in The Ibis for 1865, " On the Distri- 

 bution of Birds in Great Britain duringthe Nesting Season." 



2 Did our scheme permit us, we should be glad to mention in detail 

 the various important communications on Scottish Birds of Alston, 

 Messrs Buckley, Harvie-Brown, Luniaden, and others. 



Guernsey (1879), Mr Cordeaux's Birds of the Handier District 

 (1872), Mr John Hancock's Birds of Northumberland and Durham 

 (1874), The Birds of Nottinghamshire by Messrs Sterland and 

 Whitaker (1879), Rodi's Birds of Coma-all edited by Mr Halting 

 (1880), and the Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshire (1881), of which the 

 " Birds" are by Mr W. E. Clarke. 



The good effects of " Faunal " works such as those 

 named in the foregoing rapid survey none can 'doubt. 

 " Every kingdom, every province, should have its own 

 monographer," wrote Gilbert White more than one hundred 

 years ago, and experience has proved the truth of his 

 assertion. In a former article (Birds, iii. pp. 73G-7G4) 

 the attempt has been made to shew how the labours of 

 monographers of this kind, but on a more extended scale, 

 can be brought together, and the valuable results that 

 thence follow. Important as they are, they do not of 

 themselves constitute Ornithology as a science ; and an 

 enquiry, no less wide and far more recondite, still remains. 

 By whatever term we choose to call it — Classification, 

 Arrangement, Systematizing, or Taxonomy — that enquiry 

 which has for its object the discovery of the natural 

 groups into which Birds fall, and the mutual relations of 

 those groups, has always been one 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, preliminary 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 Frag- 

 mente " of Christian Ludwig Nitzsch, published in the Nitzsch. 

 Magaain filr dt a in uesten Zustand dry Naturhinde (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 con- 

 junction with other investigations, lead future naturalists ; 

 but they are marked by the same close and patient deter- 

 mination that eminently distinguishes all the work of their 

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

 this part of the subject later, there is here no need to say 

 more of them. In the following year another set of hints — 

 of a kind so different that probably no one then living would 

 have thought it possible that they should ever be brought 

 in correlation with those of Nitzsch — are contained in 

 a memoir on Fishes contributed to the tenth volume of 

 the Annates du Museum d'histoire naturelle of Paris by 

 Etiexne Geoffroy St-Hilaire in 1807. 3 Here we have E. G. St- 

 it stated as a general truth (p. 100) that young birds have Hilaire. 

 the sternum formed of five separate pieces — one in the 

 middle, being its keel, and two "annexes " on each side to 

 which the ribs are articulated — all, however, finally uniting 

 to form the single "breast-bone." Further on (pp. 101, 

 102) we find observations as to the number of ribs which 

 are attached to each of tin- " annexes" — there being somo- 



3 In the Philosophic Anatomique ti. pp. 69-101, and especially 

 pp. 135, 136), which appeared in ISIS, Geoffroy St-IIilaire explained 

 the views he had adopted at greater length. 



