ORNITHOLOGY 



11 



countries with which they deal, while reference to the older 

 of these treatises is usually given by the writers of the 

 newer. Still it seems advisable here to furnish some con- 

 nected account of the progress made in the ornithological 

 knowledge of those countries in which the readers of the pre- 

 sent volume may be supposed to take the most lively interest 

 ■ — for example, the British Islands and those parts of the 

 European continent which lie nearest to them or are most 

 commonly sought by travellers, the Dominion of Canada 

 and the United States of America, South Africa, India, 

 together with Australia and New Zealand. The more 

 important Monographs, again, will usually be found cited 

 in the series of special articles on Birds contained in this 

 work, though, as will be immediately perceived, there are 

 some so-styled Monographs, which by reason of the changed 

 views of classification that at present obtain have lost 

 their restricted character, and for all practical purposes 

 have now to be regarded as general works. 



It will perhaps be most convenient to begin by mention- 

 ing some of these last, and in particular a number of them 

 which appeared at Paris very early in this century. First 

 in order of them is the Histoire Naturelh d'une partit 

 cFOiseaux rwuveaux <t rares ■!■ I'Ameriqui it des Indes, a 

 Le Vail- folio volume : published in 1801 by Le Vaillant. This is 

 laut. devoted to the very distinct and not nearly-allied groups 

 of Hornbills and of birds which for want of a better name 

 we must call "Chatterers," and is illustrated, like those 

 works of which a notice immediately follows, by coloured 

 plates, done in what was then considered to be the highest 

 style of art and by the best draughtsmen procurable. 

 The first volume of a Histoire Naturelh des Perroquets, a 

 companion work by the same author, appeared in the 

 same year, and is truly a Monograph, since the Parrots 

 constitute a Family of birds so naturally severed from all 

 others that there has rarely been anything else confounded 

 with them. The second volume came out in 1805, and a 

 third was issued in 1837-38 long after the death of its pre- 

 decessor's author, by Bourjot St-Hilaire. Between 1803 

 and 1806 Le Vaillant also published in just the same style 

 two volumes with the title of Histoin Natun lh dU s Oiseaux 

 de Paradis et des Eolliers, suivie de celh des Toucans et des 

 Barbus, an assemblage of forms, which, miscellaneous as it 

 is. was surpassed in incongruity by a fourth work on the 

 same scale, the Histoire Naturelh des Promerops et des 

 Guipiers, </es Couroucous et des Touracos, for herein are 

 found Jays, Waxwings, the Cock-of-the-Kock (Bupicola), 

 and what not besides. The plates in this last are by 

 Barraband, for many years regarded as the perfection of 

 ornithological artists, and indeed the figures, when they 

 happen to have been drawn from the life, are not bad; 

 but his skill was quite unable to vivify the preserved 

 specimens contained in Museums, and w^hen he had only 

 these as subjects he simply copied the distortions of the 

 " bird-stuffer." The following year, 1808, being aided by 

 Temminck of Amsterdam, of whose son we shall presently 

 hear more, Le Vaillant brought out the sixth volume of 

 his Oiseaux cPAfrique, already mentioned. Four more 

 volumes of this work were promised ; but the means of 

 executing them were denied to him, and, though he lived 

 until 1824, his publications ceased. 



A similar series of works was projected and begun about 

 Audebert the same time as that of Le Vaillant by Audebert and 

 Vieillot ^ IE,LL0T > though the former, who was by profession a 

 painter and illustrated the work, was already dead more 

 than a year before the appearance of the two volumes, 

 bearing date 1802, and entitled Oiseaux doris ou a reflets 

 metalliqmes, the effect of the plates in which he sought to 

 heighten by the lavish use of gilding. The first volume 



1 There is also an issue of this, as of the same author's other works, 

 on large quarto paper. 



contains the "Colibris, Oiseaux-mouches, Jacamars et 

 Promerops," the second the " Orimpereaux" and " Ois< aus 



de Paradis" — associations which set all the laws of system- 

 atic method at defiance. His colleague, Vieillot, brought 

 out in 1805 a Histoin Naturelh </>.< j,/us i„,ihx Ghanteurs 

 </< l.i Zont Torride with figures by Langlois of tropical 

 Finches, Grosbeaks, Buntings, and other hard-billed birds ; 

 and in 1807 two volumes of a Histoire Naturelh des 

 Oiseaux di VAmeriqyn Septemtrionale, without, however, 

 paying much attention to the limits commonly assigned l\ 

 geographers to that part of the world. In 1805 Ansi i mi 

 Desmarest published a Histoin naturelh </•■< Tangaras, Desmarest 

 des Manakins et des Todiers, which, though belonging to 

 the same category as all the former, differs from them in 

 its more scientific treatment of the subjects to which it 

 refers; and, in 1808, Temminck, whose father's aid to Le Temminck. 

 Vaillant has already been noticed, brought out at Paris a 

 Histoire Naturelh des Pigeons illustrated by Madame 

 Knip, who had drawn the plates for Desmarest's volume. - 



Since we have begun by considering these large 

 illustrated works in which the text is made subservient to 

 the coloured plates, it may be convenient to continue our 

 notice of such others of similar character as it may be 

 expedient to mention here, though thereby we shall be led 

 somewhat far afield. Most of them are but luxuries, and 

 there is some degree of truth in the remark of Andreas 

 Wagner in his Report <>it tin J'm : //;.<s of Zoology for 1843, 

 drawn up for the Kay Society (p. GO), that they "are not 

 adapted for the extension and promotion of science, but 

 must inevitably, on account of their unnecessary costliness, 

 constantly tend to reduce the number of naturalists who 

 are able to avail themselves of them, and they thus enrich 

 ornithology only to its ultimate injury." Earliest in date 

 as it is greatest in bulk stands Audubon's egregious Birds Audubon. 

 of America in four volumes, containing four hundred and 

 thirty-five plates, of which the first part appeared in London 

 in 1827 and the last in 1838. It does not seem to have 

 been the author's original intention to publish any letter- 

 press to this enormous work, but to let the plates tell their 

 own story, though finally. w r ith the assistance, as is now- 

 known, of "William Maogillivray, a text, on the whole Macgil- 

 more than respectable, was produced in five largo octavos livray. 

 under the title of Ornithological Biography, of which more 

 will be said in the sequel. Audubon has been greatly ex- 

 tolled as an ornithological artist ; but he was far too much 

 addicted to representing his subjects in violent action and 

 in postures that outrage nature, while his drawing is very 

 frequently defective. 3 In 1866 Mr D. G. Elliot began, and Elliot, 

 in 1869 finished, a sequel to Audubon's great work in two 

 volumes, on the same scale — 77;e New and Hitherto 

 unflgured Species ofth. Birds of North America, containing 

 life-size figures of all those which had been added to its 

 fauna since the completion of the former. 



In 1830 John Edward Gray commenced the IUustra- Gray and 

 tions <>/ Indian Zoology, a series of plates of vertebrated Hardwicke. 

 animals, but mostly of Birds, from drawings it is believed by 

 native artists in the collection of General Hardwicke, whose 

 name is therefore associated with the work. Scientific 



- Temminck subsequently reproduced, •with many additions, the text 

 of this volume in Ms ///n/..//v ,/,////,v,7,,/,, /», 'inades, 



published at Amsterdam in 1813-15, in 3 vols. Svo. Between 1S38 

 and 1S48 M. Florent-Provost brought out at Paris a further set of 

 illustrations of Pigeons by Mdme. Knip. 



3 On the completion of these two works, for they must be regarded 

 as distinct, an octavo edition in seven volumes under the title of The 

 Birds "/' America was published in 1840-44. In this the large plati i 

 were reduced by means of the "camera lucida," the text was revised, 

 and the whole systematically arranged. Other reprints have it e 

 been issued, but they are vastly inferior both in execution and value. 

 A sequel to the octavo Birds of America, corresponding with it in 

 form, was brought out in 1853-55 by C.vssin as Uliistrntiim ■ 

 Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America. 



