ORNITHOLOGY 



p. L. s. 



Miiller. 



a compiler, which had been manifest before, rather increased 

 with age, and the consequences were not happy. 1 



About the time that Buffon was bringing to an end his 

 ■ studies of Birds, Mauduyt undertook to write the Orni- 

 thologie of the Encyclopedie Methodique — a compara- 

 tively easy task, considering the recent works of his fellow- 

 countrymen on that subject, and finished in 1784. Here 

 it requires no further comment, especially as a new edition 

 was called for in 1790, the ornithological portion of which 

 was begun by Bonnaterre, who, however, had only 

 finished three hundred and twenty pages of it when he lost 

 his life in the French Revolution ; and the work thus 

 arrested was continued by Yieillot under the slightly 

 changed title of Tab/out encyc/opedique et methodique des 

 trois regnes de la Nature — the Ornithologie forming 

 volumes four to seven, and not completed till 1823. In 

 the former edition Mauduyt had taken the subjects alpha- 

 betically ; but here they are disposed according to an 

 arrangement, with some few modifications, furnished by 

 D'Aubenton, which is extremely shallow and unworthy of 

 consideration. 



Several other works bearing upon Ornithology in general, 

 but of less importance than most of those just named, 

 belong to this period. Among others may be mentioned 

 the Genera of Birds by Thomas Pennant, first printed at 

 Edinburgh in 1773, but best known by the edition which 

 appeared in Loudon in 1781 ; the Elementa Ornithologica 

 ami Museum Ornithologicum of Schaffer, published at 

 Ratisbon in 177-1 and 1784 respectively; Peter Brown's 

 New Illustrations of Zoology in London in 1776 ; 

 Hermann's Tabulse Affinitatum Animalium at Strasburg 

 in 1783, followed posthumously in 1S04 by his Observa- 

 tiones Zoologicx; Jacquin's Beytraege ;ur Geschichte der 

 Voegel at Vienna in 1784, and in 1790 at the same place 

 the larger work of Spalowsky with nearly the same title ; 

 Spa_rrman's Museum Carlsonianum at Stockholm from 

 1786 to 1789; and in 1794 Hayes's Portraits of ran 

 and curious Birds from the menagery of Child the banker 

 at Osterley near London. The same draughtsman (who 

 had in 1775 produced a History if British Birds) in 

 1822 began another series of Fiyures of rare and curious 

 IJirds.- 



The practice of Brisson, Buffon, Latham, and others of 

 neglecting to name after the Linnsean fashion the species 

 they described gave great encouragement to compilation, 

 and led to what has proved to be of some inconvenience to 

 modern ornithologists. In 1773 P. L. S. Muller brought 

 out at Nuremberg a German translation of the Systema 

 Natural, completing it in 1776 by a Supplement containing 

 a list of animals thus described, which had hitherto been 

 technically anonymous, with diagnoses and names on the 

 Linnrean model. In 1783 Boddaert printed at Utrecht a 



T.d.l, des Planches Enh 



in which he attempted to 



refer every species of Bird figured in that extensive series 



to its proper Linnrean genus, and to assign it a scientific 



name if it did not already possess one. In like manner in 



Scopoli. 1786, Scopoli — already the author of a little book published 



1 He also prepared for publication a second edition of his Index 

 Ornithologicus, but this was never printed, and the manuscript is now 

 in the present writer's possession. 



- The Naturalist's Miscellany or Vivarium NaburaU, in English 

 and Latin, of Shaw and Nodder, the former being the author, the 

 latter the draughtsman and engraver, was begun in 17S9 and carried 

 mi till Shaw's death, forming twenty-four volumes. It contains 

 figures of more than 280 Birds, but very poorly executed. In l v l 1 

 a sequel, The Zoological Miscellany, was begun by Leach, Nodder 

 continuing to do the plates. This was completed in 1S17, and forms 

 three volumes with 149 plates, 27 of which represent Birds. 



3 Of this work only fifty copies were printed, and it is one of the 

 rarest known to the ornithologist. Only two copies are believed to 

 exist in England, one in the British Museum, the other in private 

 hands. It was reprinted in 1874 by Mr Tegetmeier. 



at Leipzig in 1769 under the title of Annus I. Historico- 

 naturalis, in which are described many Birds, mostly from his 

 own collection or the Imperial vivarium at Vienna — was at 

 the pains to print at Pavia in his miscellaneous Deliciee 

 Flora et Fauna; Insiibricx a, Specimen Zoo/oi/icum 4 contain- 

 ing diagnoses, duly named, of the Birds discovered and 

 described by Sonnerat in his Voyage aux Indes orientates Sonnerat 

 and Voyage a la Nouvelle Guinee, severally published at 

 Paris in 1772 and 1776. But the most striking example 

 of compilation was that exhibited by J. F. Gmelin, who Gmelin. 

 in 1788 commenced what he called the Thirteenth Edition 

 of the celebrated Systema Natural, which obtained so wide 

 a circulation that, in the comparative rarity of the original, 

 the additions of this editor have been very frequently 

 quoted, even by expert naturalists, as though they were 

 the work of the author himself. Gmelin availed himself 

 of every publication he could, but he perhaps found his 

 richest booty in the labours of Latham, neatly condensing 

 his English descriptions into Latin diagnoses, and bestow- 

 ing on them binomial names. Hence it is that Gmelin 

 appears as the authority for so much of the nomenclature 

 now in use. He took many liberties with the details of 

 Linnaus's work, but left the classification, at least of the 

 Birds, as it was — a few new genera excepted. 5 



During all this time little had been done in studying the 

 internal structure of Birds since the works of Coiter already 

 mentioned 6 ; but the foundations of the science of Embry- 

 ology had been laid by the investigations into the develop- 

 ment of the chick by the great Harvey'. Between 1666 

 and 1669 Perratjlt edited at Paris eight accounts of the 

 dissection by Dtj Verney of as many species of Birds, 

 which, translated into English, were published by the 

 Royal Society in 1702, under the title of The Natural 

 History of Animals. After the death of the two anatomists 

 just named, another series of similar descriptions of eight 

 other species was found among their papers, and the whole 

 were published in the Memoires of the French Academy of 

 Sciences in 1733 and 1734. But in 1681 Gerard Blasius Gerard 

 had brought out at Amsterdam an Anatome Animalium, laslus - 

 containing the results of all the dissections of animals that 

 he could find ; and the second part of this book, treating of 

 VolatUia, makes a respectable show of more than one 

 hundred and twenty closely-printed quarto pages, though 

 nearly two-thirds is devoted to a treatise De Oco et Pullo, 

 containing among other things a reprint of Harvey's 

 researches, and the scientific rank of the whole book may 

 be inferred from Bats being still classed with Birds. In 

 1720 Valentint published, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, his Valentini. 

 Amphitheatrum Zootomicum, in which again most of the 

 existing accounts of the anatomy of Birds were reprinted. 

 But these and many other contributions, 7 made until nearly 

 the close of the eighteenth century, though highly meritori- 

 ous, were unconnected as a whole, and it is plain that no 

 conception of what it was in the power of Comparative 

 Anatomy to set forth had occurred to the most diligent 

 dissectors. This privilege was reserved for Georges 

 Cuvier, who in 1798 published at Paris his Tableau Cuvier. 

 Elementaire de Vhistoire naturelle des Animaux, and thus 

 laid the foundation of a thoroughly and hitherto unknown 



4 This was reprinted in 1882 by the Willughby Society. 



5 Daddin's unfinished Traits elementaire et complet d' Ornithologie 

 appeared at Paris in 1800, and therefore is the last of these general 

 works published in the eighteenth century. 



6 A succinct notice of the older works on Ornithotomy is given by 

 Prof. Selenka in the introduction to that portion of Dr Bronn's 

 Klassen unci Ordnwigen des Thierreichs relating to Birds (pp. 1-9) 

 published in 1869 ; and Prof. Caros's Geschichte der Zoologie, pub- 

 lished in 1 872, may also be usefully consulted for further information 

 on this and other heads. 



7 The treatises of the two Baktholinis and Borricuius published 

 at Copenhagen deserve mention if only to record the activity of Danish 

 anatomists in those days. 



