12 



ORNITHOLOG Y 



names are assigned to the species figured ; but no text was 

 ever supplied. In 1832 Mr Leak, afterwards well known 

 as a painter, brought out his Illustrations of the Family of 

 Psittacidx, a volume which deserves especial notice from 

 the extreme fidelity to nature and the great artistic skill 

 with which the figures were executed. 



This same year (1832) saw the beginning of the 

 marvellous series of illustrated ornithological works by 

 which the name of John CJould is likely to be always 

 remembered. A Century of Birds from the Himalaya 

 Mountains was followed by The Birds of Europe in five 

 volumes, published between 1832 and 1837, while in the 

 interim (1834) appeared .1 Monograph oftht Ramphastidx, 

 of which a second edition was some years later called for, 

 then the Icones Avium, of which only two parts were 

 published (1837-38), and A Monograph of the Trogonidse 

 (1838), which also reached a second edition. Sailing 

 in 1838 for New South Wales, on his return in 1840 he 

 at once commenced the greatest of all his works, The Birds 

 of Austral io, which was finished in 1848 in seven volumes, 

 to which several supplementary parts, forming another 

 volume, were subsequently added. In 1849 he began A 

 Monograph oftht Trochilidx or Humming-birds extending 

 to five volumes, the last of which appeared in 1861, and 

 has since been followed by a supplement now in course of 

 completion by Mr Salvix. A Monograph of the Odonto- 

 phorinse or Partridges of America (1850); The Birds of 

 Asia, in seven volumes, the last completed by Mr Shaepe 

 (1850-83); The Birds of Great Britain, in' five volumes 

 (1862-73) ; and The Birds of New Guinea, begun in 1875, 

 and, after the author's death in 1881, undertaken by Mr 

 Sharpe, make up the wonderful tale consisting of more 

 than forty folio volumes, and containing more than three 

 thousand coloured plates. The earlier of these works were 

 illustrated by Mrs Gould, and the figures in them are fairly 

 good ; but those in the later, except when (as he occasionally 

 did) he secured the services of Mr Wolf, are not so much 

 to be commended. There is, it is true, a smoothness and 

 finish about them not often seen elsewhere; but, as though 

 to avoid the exaggerations of Audubon, Gould usually 

 adopted the tamest of attitudes in which to represent his 

 subjects, whereby expression as well as vivacity is want- 

 ing. Moreover, both in drawing and in colouring there is 

 frequently much that is untrue to nature, so that it has 

 not uncommonly happened for them to fail in the chief 

 object of all zoological plates, that of affording sure means 

 of recognizing specimens on comparison. In estimating 

 the letterpress, which was avowedly held to be of secondary 

 importance to the plates, we must bear in mind that, to 

 ensure the success of his works, it had to be written to suit 

 a very peculiarly composed body of subscribers. Never- 

 theless a scientific character was so adroitly assumed that 

 scientific men — some of them even ornithologists — have 

 thence been led to believe the text had a scientific value, and 

 that of a high class. However it must also be remembered 

 that, throughout the whole of his career, Gould consulted 

 the convenience of working ornithologists by almost 

 invariably refraining from including in his folio works the 

 technical description of any new species without first pub- 

 lishing it in some journal of comparatively easy access. 



An ambitious attempt to produce in England a general 

 series of coloured plates on a large scale was Mr Phaser's 

 Zoologia Typica, the first part of which bears date. 1841- 

 12. Others appeared at irregular intervals until 1849, 

 when the work, which seems never to have received the 

 support it deserved, was discontinued. The seventy plates 

 (forty-six of which represent birds) composing, with some 

 explanatory letterpress, t lie volume are by C. Cousens and 

 H. N. Turner, - the latter (as his publications prove) a 

 zoologist of much promise, who in 1851 died, a victim to 



his own zeal for investigation, of a wound received in 

 dissecting. The chief object of the author, who had been 

 naturalist to the Niger Expedition, and curator to the 

 Museum of the Zoological Society of London, was to figure 

 the animals contained in its gardens or described in its 

 Proceedings, which until the year 1848 were not illustrated. 



The publication of the Zoological Sketches of Mr Wolf, Wolf, 

 from animals in the gardens of the Zoological Society, was 

 begun about 1 855, with a brief text by Mitchell, at that 

 time the Society's secretary, in illustration of them. After 

 his death in 1 859, the explanatory letterpress was rewritten 

 by Mr Sc later, his successor in that office, and a volume 

 was completed in 1861. Upon this a second series was 

 commenced, and brought to an end in 1868. Though a 

 comparatively small number of species of Birds are figured 

 in this magnificent work (seventeen only in the first series, 

 and twenty-two in the second), it must be mentioned here, 

 for their likenesses are so admirably executed as to place 

 it in regard to ornithological portraiture at the head of all 

 others. There is not a single plate that is unworthy of the 

 greatest of all animal painters. 



Proceeding to illustrated works generally of less preten- 

 tious size but of greater ornithological utility than the 

 books last mentioned, which are fitter for the drawing-room 

 than the study, we next have to consider some in which the 

 text is not wholly subordinated to the plates, though the 

 latter still form a conspicuous feature of the publication. 

 First of these in point of time as well as in importance is 

 the J\ T our,an Recueil des Planches Coloriees d'Oiseaux of 

 Temmixck and Laugier, intended as a sequel to the Temminck 

 Planches Enluminees of DAubenton before noticed (page an(i 

 6), and like that work issued both in folio and quarto au § ler - 

 size. The first portion of this was published at Paris in 

 1820, and of its one hundred and two livraisons, which 

 appeared with great irregularity {Ibis, 1868, p. 500), the 

 last was issued in 1839, containing the titles of the five 

 volumes that the whole forms, together with a " Tableau 

 Methodique " which but indifferently serves the purpose 

 of an index. There are six hundred plates, but the exact 

 number of species figured (which has been computed at 

 six hundred and sixty-one) is not so easily ascertained. 

 Generally the subject of each plate has letterpress to cor- 

 respond, but in some cases this is wanting, while on the 

 other hand descriptions of species not figured are occasion- 

 ally introduced, and usually observations on the distribu- 

 tion and construction of each genus or group are added. 

 The plates, which shew no improvement in execution on 

 those of Martinet, are after drawings by Huet and Pretre, 

 the former being perhaps the less bad draughtsman of the 

 two, for he seems to have had an idea of what a bird when 

 alive looks like, though he was not able to give his figures 

 any vitality, while the latter simply delineated the stiff 

 and dishevelled specimens from museum shelves. Still 

 the colouring is pretty well done, and experience has proved 

 that generally speaking there is not much difficulty in 

 recognizing the species represented. The letterpress is 

 commonly limited to technical details, and is not always 

 accurate ; but it is of its kind useful, for in general know- 

 ledge of the outside of Birds Temminck probably surpassed 

 any of his contemporaries. The " Tableau Methodique " 

 offers- a convenient concordance of the old Planches 

 Enluminees and its successor, and is arranged after the 

 system set forth by Temminck in the first volume of the 

 second edition of his Manuel oVOrnithologie, of which 

 something must presently be said. 



The Galerit des Oiseaux, a rival work, with plates by 

 Oudart, seems to have been begun immediately after the Oudart. 

 former. The original project was apparently to give a 

 figure and description of every species of Bird ; but that 

 was soon found to be impossible ; and, when six parts had 



