14 



ORNITHOLOGY 



though many are piracies from Bewick, and the whole is 

 a most unsatisfactory performance. Of a very different 

 kind is the next we have to notice, the Prodromw 



Illiger. Systematic Mammalium et Avium of Illiger, published at 

 Berlin in 1811, which must in its day have been a valu- 

 able little manual, and on many points it may now be 

 consulted to advantage — the characters of the Genera 

 being admirably given, and good explanatory lists of the 

 technical terms of Ornithology furnished. The classifica- 

 tion was quite new, and made a step distinctly in advance 



Vieillot. of anything that had before appeared. 1 In 1816 Vieillot 

 published at Paris an Analyse d'une nouvelle Omithologie 

 ili-nti n/aire, containing a method of classification which he 

 had tried in vain to get printed before, both in Turin and in 

 London. 2 Some of the ideas in this are said to have been 

 taken from Illiger ; but the two systems seem to be wholly 

 distinct. Vieillot's was afterwards more fully expounded 

 in the series of articles which he contributed between 

 1816 and 1819 to the Second Edition of the Nouveau 

 Dictionnaire oVJIistoire Naturelle containing much valuable 

 information. The views of neither of these systema- 



Tem- tizers pleased Temminck, who in 1817 replied rather 



miuck. sharply to Vieillot in some Observations sur la Classification 

 methodique des Oiseaux, a pamphlet published at Amster- 

 dam, and prefixed to the second edition of his Manuel 

 <F Omithologie, which appeared in 1820, an Analyse du 

 Systeme General d' Omithologie. This proved a great suc- 

 cess, and his arrangement, though by no means simple, 3 

 was not only adopted by many ornithologists of almost 

 every country, but still has some adherents. The follow- 



Kanzani. ing year Ranzani of Bologna, in his Elementi di Zoologia — 

 a very respectable compilation — came to treat of Birds, 

 and then followed to some extent the plan of De Blain- 

 ville and Merrem (concerning which much more has to 

 be said by and by) placing the Struthious Birds in an 



Wagler. Order by themselves. In 1827 Wagler brought out the 

 first part of a Systema Avium, in this form never com- 

 pleted, consisting of forty-nine detached monographs of 

 as many genera, the species of which are most elaborately 

 described. The arrangement he subsequently adopted for 

 them and for other groups is to be found in his Natiirliehes 

 System der Amphibien (pp. 77-128), published in 1830, 

 and is too fanciful to require any further attention. The 



Kaup. several attempts at system-making by Kaup, from his 

 Allgemeine Zoologie in 1829 to his Uebrr C/asshi ration der 

 Vogel in 1819, were equally arbitrary and abortive; but 

 his Skhzirte Eniwickelungs-Geschichte in 1829 must be 

 here named, as it is so often quoted on account of the 

 number of new genera which the peculiar views he had 

 embraced compelled him to invent. These views he 

 shared more or less with Vigors and Swainson, and to 

 them attention will be immediately especially invited, 

 while consideration of the scheme gradually developed 



1 [lliger may be considered the founder of the school of nomencla- 

 tural purists, He would uot tolerate any of the " barbarous " generic 

 terms adopted by other writers, though some had been in use for many 

 years. 



- The method was communicated to the Turin Academy, 10th January 

 1814, and was ordered to be printed {Mem. Ac. Sc. Turin. 1S13-14, 

 ]>. xxviii); but, through the derangements of that stormy period, the 

 order was never carried out (Mem. Accad. Sc. Torino, xxiii. p. xcvii). 

 The minute-book of the Linnean Society of London shews that his.?Vo- 

 Zusiowas read at meetings of that Society between 15th November 1814 

 and 21st February 1815. Why it was not at once accepted is not 

 told, but the entry respecting it, which must be of much later date, in 

 the" Register of Papers" is " Published already." It isdue to Vieillot 

 to mention these facts, as he has been accused of publishing his method 

 in haste to anticipate some of Cuvier's views, but he might well 



complain of the delay in London. Sonic reparation has 1 n made 



to his memory by the reprinting of his Analyse by the Willughby 

 Society. 



" He recognized sixteen Orders of Birds, while Vieillot had been 

 content with live, and Illiger with seven. 



from 1831 onward by Charles Lucien Bonaparte, and Bona- 

 still not without its influence, is deferred until we come parte, 

 to treat of the rise and progress of what we may term the 

 reformed school of Ornithology. Yet injustice would be 

 done to one of the ablest of those now to be called the 

 old masters of the science if mention were not here made 

 of the Conspectus Generum Avium, begun in 1850 by the 

 naturalist last named, with the help of Schlegel, and Schlegel. 

 unfortunately interrupted by its author's death six years 

 later. 4 The systematic publications of George Robert G. R. 

 Gray, so long in charge of the ornithological collection of Gra y- 

 the British Museum, began with A List of the Genera of 

 Birds published in 1840. This, having been closely, 

 though by no means in a hostile spirit, criticized by 

 Strickland {Ann. Nat. History, vi. p. 410; vii. pp. 26 Strick- 

 and 159), was followed by a Second Edition in 1841, in lallJ - 

 which nearly all the corrections of the reviewer were 

 adopted, and in 1844 began the publication of The Genera 

 of Birds, beautifully illustrated — first by Mitchell and 

 afterwards by Mr Wolf — which will always keep Gray's 

 name in remembrance. The enormous labour required 

 for this work seems scarcely to have been appreciated, 

 though it remains to this day one of the most useful books 

 in an ornithologist's library. Yet it must be confessed 

 that its author was hardly an ornithologist but for the 

 accident of his calling. He was a thoroughly conscientious 

 clerk, devoted to his duty and unsparing of trouble. 

 However, to have conceived the idea of executing a work 

 on so grand a scale as this — it forms three folio volumes, 

 and contains one hundred and eighty-five coloured and one 

 hundred and forty-eight uncoloured plates, with references 

 to upwards of two thousand four hundred generic names — 

 was in itself a mark of genius, and it was brought to a suc- 

 cessful conclusion in 1849. Costly as it necessarily was, 

 it has been of great service to working ornithologists. In 

 1855 Gray brought out, as one of the Museum publica- 

 tions, A Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera of Birds, 

 a handy little volume, naturally founded on the larger 

 works. Its chief drawback is that it does not give any 

 more reference to the authority for a generic term than 

 the name of its inventor and the year of its application, 

 though of course more precise information would have at 

 least doubled the size of the book. The same deficiency 

 became still more apparent when, between 1869 and 1871, 

 he published his Hand-List of Generaand Species of Birds 

 in three octavo volumes (or parts, as they are called). 

 Never was a book better named, for the working ornitho- 

 logist must almost live with it in his hand, and though 

 he has constantly to deplore its shortcomings, one of 

 which especially is the wrong principle on which its index 

 is constructed, he should be thankful that such a work 

 exists. Many of its defects are, or perhaps it were better 

 said ought to be, supplied by Giebel's Thesaurus Ornitho- Giebel. 

 logix, also in three volumes, published between 1872 and 

 1877, a work admirably planned, but the execution of 

 which, whether through the author's carelessness or the 

 printer's fault, or a combination of both, is lamentably 

 disappointing. Again and again it will afford the 

 enquirer who consults it valuable hints, but he must be 

 mindful never to trust a single reference in it until it has 

 been verified. It remains to warn the reader also that, 

 useful as are both this work and those of Gray, their 

 utility is almost solely confined to experts. 



With the exception to which reference has just been 

 made, scarcely any of the ornithologists hitherto named 

 indulged their imagination in theories or speculations. 

 Nearly all were content to prosecute their labours in a 

 plain fashion consistent with common sense, plodding 



4 To this very indispensable work a good index was supplied in 

 1S65 by Dr Finsch. 



