ORNITHOLOGY 



9 



Beck 



sti in. 



The Nan- 

 mauns. 



Bork- 



hausell. 



Bartrarn, 

 Barton. 



J. R. 



Forster. 



and in 1704 Siemssen's Handbuch of the Birds of Mecklen- 

 burg was published at Rostock. But these works, locally 

 useful as they may have been, did nol occupy tin- whole 

 attention of German ornithologists, for in 1791 ]'.i:iiist:.ix 

 reached the second volume of his Gemeinmitzig< Naturge- 

 schichte DeutscMands, treating of the Birds of that country, 

 which ended with the fourth in 1795. Of this an abridged 

 edition by the name of Ornithologisches Taschenbuch 

 appeared in 1802 and 1803, with a supplement in 1812; 

 while between 1805 and 1809 a fuller edition of the 

 original was issued. Moreover in 1795 J. A. Naumann 

 humbly began at Cb'then a treatise on the Birds of 

 the principality of Anhalt, which on its completion in 1804 

 was found to have swollen into an Ornithology of Northern 

 Germany and the neighbouring countries. Eight supple- 

 ments were successively published between 1805 and 1817, 

 and in 1822 a new edition was required. This Naturge- 

 schichtt d r Vogel DeutscMands, being almost wholly re- 

 written by his son J. F. Naumanx, is by far the best 

 thing of the kind as yet produced in any country. The 

 fulness and accuracy of the text, combined with the neat 

 beauty of its coloured plates, have gone far to promote the 

 study of Ornithology in Germany, and while essentially a 

 popular work, since it is suited to the comprehension of all 

 readers, it is throughout written with a simple dignity that 

 commends it to the serious and scientific. Its twelfth and 

 last volume was published in 1814 — by no means too long 

 a period for so arduous and honest a performance, and a 

 supplement was begun in 1847 ; but, the editor — or author 

 as he may be fairly called — dying in 1857, this continua- 

 tion was finished in 1860 by the joint efforts of J. H. 

 Blasit/s and Dr Baldamus. In 1800 Borkhausen with 

 others commenced at Darmstadt a Teutsche Omithologie in 

 folio which appeared at intervals till 1812, and remains 

 unfinished, though a reissue of the portion published took 

 place between 1837 and 1841. 



Other countries on the Continent, though not quite so 

 prolific as Germany, bore some ornithological fruit at 

 this period ; but in all Southern Europe only four faunistic 

 products can be named : — the Saggio di St<,ri<t Naturale 

 Bresciana of Pilati, published at Brescia in 1769; the 

 Omitologia 'I'll' Ewropa Meridionalt of Bernini, published 

 at Parma between 1772 and 1776 ; the Uccelli di Sardegna 

 of Cetti, published at Sassari in 1776 ; and the Romana 

 Omithologia of Gilius, published at Rome in 1781 — the 

 last being in great part devoted to Pigeons and Poultry. 

 More appeared in the North, for in 1770 Amsterdam sent 

 forth the beginning of Nozeman's Nederlandsche Vogelen, 

 a fairly illustrated work in folio, but only completed by 

 Houttuyn in 1829, and in Scandinavia most of all was 

 done. In 1746 the great LinNjEUS had produced a Fauna 

 Svecica, of which a second edition appeared in 1761, and a 

 . third revised by Retzius in 1800. In 1764 Brunnich pub- 

 lished at Copenhagen his Omithologia Borealis, a com- 

 pendious sketch of the Birds of all the countries then sub- 

 ject to the Danish crown. At the same place appeared 

 in 1767 Leem's work De Lapponibus Finmarchiae, to which 

 Gonnerus contributed' some good notes on the Ornitho- 

 logy of Northern Norway, and at Copenhagen and Leipzig 

 was published in 1780 the Fauna Groenlandica of Otho 

 . Fabriciits. 



Of strictly American origin can here be cited only 

 Barteam's Travels through North and South Carolina and 

 Barton's Fragments of th Natural History of Pennsyl- 

 vania, 1 both printed at Philadelphia, one in 1791, the other 

 in 1799 ; but J. R. Forster published a Catalogue of the 

 Animals of North America in London in 1771, and the 



1 This extremely rare hook has been reprinted hy the Willughhy 

 Society. 



following year described in the Philosophical Transactions 



a tew Birds from Hudson's Bay. 2 A greater undertaking 



was Pennant's Arctic Zoology, published in 1785, with a Pennant, 



supplement in 17S7. The scope of this work was originally 



intended to be limited to North America, but circumsti 



induced him to include all the species of Northern Europe 



and Northern Asia, and though not free from errors it is a 



praiseworthy performance. A second edition appeared in 



1792. The Ornithology of Britain naturally demands 



greater attention. The earliest list of British Birds we 



possess is that given by Merrett in his Pinax Rerum Meruit. 



Naturalium Britannicarum, printed in London in 1667. 3 



In 1677 Plot published his Natural History of Oxfordshire, Plot. 



which reached a second edition in 1705, and in 1686 that 



of Staffordshire. A similar work on Lancashire, Cheshire, 



and tin- Peak was sent out in 1700 by Leigh, and one on Leigh. 



( 'ornwall by Borlase in 1758 — all thesefour being printed Borlase. 



at Oxford. In 1766 appeared Pennant's British Zoology, Pennant, 



a well-illustrated folio, of which a second edition in octavo 



was published in 1768, and considerable additions (forming 



the nominally third edition) in 1770, while in 1777 there 



were two issues, one in octavo the other in quarto, each 



called the fourth edition. In 1812, long after the author's 



death, another edition was printed, of which his son-in-law 



Hanmer was the reputed editor, but he received much 



assistance from Latham, and through carelessness many of 



the additions herein made have often been ascribed to 



Pennant. In 1769 Berkenhout gave to the world his Berkeu- 



Outlines of the Natural History if Great Britain ami ll " ut - 



Ireland, which reappeared under the title of Synopsis of the 



same in 1795. Tunstall's Omithologia Britannica, which Tunstall. 



appeared in 1771, is little more than a list of names. 4 In 



1781 Nash's Worcestershire included a few ornithological 



notices; and Walcott in 1789 published an illustrated Wakot. 



Synopsis of British Birds, coloured copies of which are ran-. 



In 1791 J. Heysham added to Hutchins's Cumberland a 



list of Birds of that county, and in 1794 Donovan began Donovan. 



a History of British Birds which was only finished in 1819 



— the earlier portion being reissued about the same time. 



In 1800 Lewin brought out a very worthless work with Lewin. 



the same title. 



All the foregoing publications yield in importance to 

 two that remain to be mentioned, a notice of which will 

 fitly conclude this part of our subject. In 1767 Pennant, 

 several of whose works have already been named, entered 

 into correspondence with Gilbert White, receiving from Gilbert 

 him much information, almost wholly drawn from his own White, 

 observation, for the succeeding editions of the British 

 Zoology. In 1769 White began exchanging letters of a 

 similar character with Barrington. The epistolary inter- 

 course with the former continued until 1780 and with 

 the latter until 1787. In 1 789 White's share of the corre- 

 spondence, together with some miscellaneous matter, was 

 published as The Natural History of Selborne — from the 

 name of the village in which he lived. Observations on 

 Birds form the principal though by no means the whole 

 theme of this book, which may be safely said to have clono 

 more to promote a love of Ornithology in this country than 

 any other work that has been written, nay more than all 

 the other works (except one next to be mentioned) put 

 together. It has passed through a far greater number of 



3 Both of these treatises have also been reprinted by the Willughby 

 Society. 



3 In this year there were two issues of this book ; one, nominally a 

 second edition, only differs from the first in having a new title-page. 

 No real second edition ever appeared, but in anticipation of it Sir 

 Thomas Browne prepared in or about 1671 {'.) his "Account of Birds 

 found in Norfolk," of which tin- draught, now in the British Museum, 

 \\:is printed in his collected works by Wilkin in 1835. If a fail' copy 

 was ever made its resting-place is unknown. 



4 It has been republished by the Willughby Society. 



XVIII. — 2 



