THE HUMMING BIRDS. 259 



The exteut to which our knowledge of Humming Birds has grown 

 may be realized when it is considered that in 1758, when the tentli 

 edition of Linuieus's Systema Naturne was published, only eighteen 

 species were known, while at the present time the total number of rec- 

 ognizable species and subspecies is not far from five hundred. The 

 gradual evolution of our knowledge on the subject is thus outlined by 

 Dr. Coues in the bibliography from which we have previously quoted : 



In 1758, when Linnteus applied his system consistently to birds, in the tenth edi- 

 tion of the Systema Natnni', he used the' classic word TrochUiis for a genus coexten- 

 sive with the modern family Trochilichv, and catalogued 18 species, mostly based upon 

 descriptions or figures furnished by Soba, Brown, Sloaue, Catesby, Edwards, Clusius, 

 and Albin, with references also to the Miis. Ad. Fr. In the twelfth edition, 1766, 

 this number was increased to 22, with many additional references, as to Marcgrave, 

 Willnghby, Ray, and especially Brisson. 



In 1760, the last-uamed famous ornithologist gave us what may be deemed the 

 first extended or in any sense " monographic" account of Trochilidw. Studiously 

 collating the already numerous notices scattered through works of the character I 

 have mentioned, as well as through the illustrated and other natural history treatises 

 of his predecessors in ornithology, he was enabled to describe with his customary 

 elaboration no fewer than 36 species and to present a copious bibliography. Ho 

 also made the first tenable gener.i of Hummers after Trochiliis, dividing the whole 

 family into two groups, Polytmus and MelUsuga, one containing large species with 

 curved bills, the other small species with straight bills. In this action of Brisson's 

 we see the origin of the curious fashion which so long endured among French writers, 

 that of distinguishing " Colibris " from " Oiseaux-mouches " among Trochilidw. It is 

 also notable as the starting-point of a generic subdivision of the group which was 

 destined at length to reach the farcical and scandalous exti'eme of some 350 genera 

 for few more than 400 known species. 



In 1779, Bufibu adopted the same two divisions of "Colibris" and "Oiseaux- 

 mouches," presenting 19 species of the former and 24 of the latter group, a total of 

 43 Trochilidw. If we except the mere naming and describing of some additional 

 species by Gmeliu and Latham, nearly all that had been learned of the birds up to 

 the close of the last century was reflected in the works of these two fiimous French 

 authors. 



In 1788, the industrious but indiscriminate and incompetent compiler of the Thir- 

 teenth edition of the Syst. Nat. produced a total of 65 species of Trochilus. None 

 were described except at second-hand, but to many of them binomial names were 

 first affixed. Two years afterward 65 species of Trochilus were recorded in the 

 lud. Orn. of Latham.* 



We are thus brought, by the stepping-stones of but few works requiring special 

 ■mention here, to the opening of the nineteenth century, which saw Audebort and 

 Vieillot's luxurious work, Ois. Dords, perhaps the first ornithological work which 



ily this has heen with writers. An "Addendum to the Trochilidse (pp. 690-692), 

 which embodies a systematic review of Trochilidiue literature, and an " Index Gen- 

 erum Trochilidarum " (pp. 692-696), consisting of an alphabetical list, with refer- 

 ences, of no less than four hundred and six difi'erent generic names (including some- 

 times two or more difterent spellings of the same name), render this bibliography 

 very complete up to date, and quite indispensable to any one doing special work upon 

 this group of birds. 



* The eighth volume, 1812, of Shaw's Gen. Zool. gave 70 species of Trochilus. 



