ORNITHOLOGY 



mode of appreciating the value of the various groups of the 

 Animal Kingdom. Yet his first attempt was a mere sketch. 1 

 Though he made a perceptible advance on the classification 

 of Linnaeus, at that time predominant, it is now easy to see 

 in how many ways — want of sufficient material being no 

 doubt one of the chief — Cuvier failed to produce a really 

 natural arrangement. His principles, however, are those 

 which must still guide taxonomers, notwithstanding that 

 they have in so great a degree overthrown the entire scheme 

 which he propounded. Confining our attention here, as 

 of course it ought to be confined, to Ornithology, Cuvier's 

 arrangement of the Class Aves is now seen to be not very 

 much better than any which it superseded. But this view 

 is gained by following the methods which Cuvier taught. 

 In the work just mentioned few details are given; but 

 even the more elaborate classification of Birds contained in 

 his Zegons cPAnatomie Comparee of 1805 is based wholly 

 on external characters, such as had been used by nearly all 

 his predecessors ; and the Regne Animal of 1817, when he 

 was in his fullest vigour, afforded not the least evidence 

 that he had ever dissected a couple even of Birds - with the 

 object of determining their relative position in his system, 

 which then, as before, depended wholly on the configuration 

 of bills, wings, and feet. But, though apparently without 

 such a knowledge of the anatomy of Birds as would enable 

 him to apply it to the formation of that natural system 

 which he was fully aware had yet to be sought, he seems 

 to have been an excellent judge of the characters afforded 

 by the bill and limbs, and the use he made of them, coupled 

 with the extraordinary reputation he acquired on other 

 grounds, procured for his system the adhesion for many 

 years of the majority of ornithologists, and its influence 

 though waning is still strong. Regret must always be felt 

 1 ')• them that his great genius was never applied in earnest 

 to their branch of study, especially when we consider that 

 had it been so the perversion of energy in regard to the 

 classification of Birds witnessed in England for nearly 

 twenty years, and presently to be mentioned, would most 

 likely have been prevented. 3 



Hitherto mention has chiefly been made of works on 

 General Ornithology, but it will be understood that these 

 were largely aided by the enterprise of travellers, and as 

 there were many of them who published their narratives in 

 separate forms their contributions have to be considered. 

 Of those travellers then the first to be here especially named 

 Marsigli. is Maesigli, the fifth volume of whose Damibitis Pannonico- 

 Mysicus is devoted to the Birds he met with in the valley 

 of the Danube, and appeared at the Hague in 1725, 

 followed by a French translation in 1744. 4 Most of the 

 many pupils whom Linnaeus sent to foreign countries sub- 

 mitted their discoveries to him, but Kalm, Hasselqvist, 

 and Osbeck published separately their respective travels 



1 It had hi effect on Lacep£:de, who in the following year added a 

 Tableau MUhodique containing a classification of Birds to his 

 Disarws d' Ouverlure (Mem. de V Institut, iii. pp. 154 Iiis, 503-519). 



" So little regard did lie pay to the Osteology of Birds that, 

 according to De Blainville (Jour, de Physique, xcii. p. 187, note), 

 the skeleton of a Fowl to which was attached the head of a Hornbill 

 was for a long linn' exhibited in the Museum of Comparative 

 Anatomy at Paris ! Yet, in order to determine the difference of 

 structure in their organs of voire, Cuvier, as he says in his Lecons 

 (iv. p. 464), dissected more than one hundred and fifty species of 

 Birds. Unfortunately fur him, .'is will appear in the sequel, it seems 

 not to have occurred to him to use any of the results he obtained as 

 the basis of a classification. 



3 It is unnecessary to enumerate the various editions of tin' Regne 

 Animal. Of the English translations, that edited by Griffiths and 

 I'll "on is the most complete. The ornithological portion of it 

 contained in these vol nun- received many additions from John' Edward 

 Gray, and appeared in 1829. 



4 Though much later in date, the Iter per Poseganam & ffi 

 of PiLLERand Mitterpacher, published at Buda in 1783, may perhaps 

 In.' here most conveniently mentioned. 



in North America, the Levant, and China. 5 The incessant 

 journeys of Pallas and his colleagues — Falk, Georgi, 

 S. G. Gmelin, Guldenstadt, Lepechin, and others — in the 

 exploration of the recently extended Russian empire sup- 

 plied not only much material to the Comment arii and Ada of 

 the Academy of St Petersburg, but more that is to be found 

 in their narratives, — all of it being of the highest interest 

 to students of Pataarctic or Nearctic Ornithology. Nearly 

 the whole of their results, it may here be said, were 

 summed up in the important Zoographia Jiosso-Asiatica of 

 the first-named naturalist, which saw the light in 1811, — 

 the year of its author's death, — but, owing to circumstances 

 over which he had no control, was not generally accessible 

 till twenty years later. Of still wider interest are the 

 accounts of Cook's three famous voyages, though unhappily 

 much of the information gained by the naturalists who accom- 

 panied him on one or more of them seems to be irretriev- 

 ably lost: the original observations of the elder Foester 

 were not printed till 1844, and the valuable collection of 

 zoological drawings made by the younger Forster still 

 remains unpublished in the British Museum. The several 

 accounts by John White, Collins, Phillips, Hunter, and 

 others of the colonization of New South Wales at the 

 end of the last century ought not to be overlooked by any 

 Australian ornithologist. The only information at this 

 period on the Ornithology of South America is contained in 

 the two works on Chili by Molina, published at Bologna in 

 1776andl782. The travelsof Le Vaillant in South Africa 

 having been completed in 1785, his great Oiseaiix d'Afrique 

 began to appear in Paris in 1790 ; but it is hard to speak 

 properly of this work, for several of the species described in 

 it are certainly not, and never were in his time, inhabitants 

 of that country, though he sometimes gives a long account 

 of the circumstances under which he observed them. 6 



From travellers who employ themselves in collecting the 

 animals of any distant country the zoologists who stay at 

 home and study those of their own district, be it great or 

 small, are really not so much divided as at first might 

 appear. Both may well be named " Faunists," and of the 

 latter there were not a few who having turned their atten- 

 tion more or less to Ornithology should here be mentioned, 

 and first among them Rzaczynski, who inl721 brought out 

 at Sandomirsk the Historia naturalis curiosa regwi Poloniee, 

 to which an Auctuarium was posthumously published at 

 Danzig in 1742. This also may be perhaps the most 

 proper place to notice the Historia Avium Hungarix of 

 Grossinger, published at Posen in 1793. In 1734 J. L. 

 Frisch began the long series of works on the Birds of 

 Germany with which the literature of Ornithology is 

 enriched, by his Vorstelhmg der Vug, I Tmtschlands, which 

 was only completed in 17G3, and, its coloured plates 

 proving very attractive, was again issued at Berlin in 1817. 

 The little fly-sheet of Zorn 7 — for it is scarcely more— on 

 the Birds of the Hercynian Forest made its appearance at 

 Pappenheim in 1745. In 1756 Kramer published at : 

 Vienna a modest Elenchus of the plants and animals of 

 Lower Austria, and J. D. Petersen produced at Altona 

 in 1766 a Verzeichniss balthiscker Vogel; while in 1791 

 J. B. Fischer's Versuch einer NaturgescAichtt von Livland 

 appeared at Konigsberg, next year Beseke brought out at : 

 Mitau his Bcgtrag :ur Xaturgesrhirhh <l, r Yog, I Kurlandx, 



5 The results of Forskal's travels in the Levant, published after his 

 death by Niebuhr, require mention, but the ornithology they contain 

 is but scant. 



6 It has been charitably suggested that, his collection and notes 

 having suffered shipwreck, he was induced to supply the latter from 

 his memory and the former by the nearest approach to his lost specimens 

 that he could obtain. This explanation, poor as it is, fails, however, 

 in regard to some species. 



7 His earlier work under the title of Petinolheologie can hardly be 

 deemed scientific. 



The 

 Forsters 



Le 

 Vaillant. 



Rzaczyn- 

 ski. 



Grossin- 

 ger. 

 Frisch. 



