INTRODUCTION 7 
Hitherto, from the nature of the case, the works aforesaid treated of 
scarcely any but the Birds belonging to the orbis veteribus notus ; but the 
geographical discoveries of the sixteenth century began to bear fruit, and 
many animals of kinds unsuspected were, about one hundred years later, 
made known. Here there is only space to name Bontius, Clusius, 
Hernandez! (or Fernandez), Marcgrave, Nieremberg and Piso,? whose 
several works describing the natural products of both the Indies—whether 
the result of their own observation or compilation—together with those 
of Olina and Worm, produced a marked effect, since they led up to what 
may be deemed the foundation of scientific Ornithology.’ 
This foundation was laid by the joint labours of Francis Willughby 
(born 1635, died 1672) and John Ray (born 1628, died 1705), for it is 
impossible to separate their share of work in Natural History more than 
to say that, while the former more especially devoted himself to zoology, 
botany was the favourite pursuit of the latter. Together they studied, 
together they travelled and together they collected. Willughby, the 
younger of the two, and at first the other’s pupil, seems to have gradually 
become the master ; but dying before the promise of his life was fulfilled, 
his writings were given to the world by his friend Ray, who, adding to 
them from his own stores, published the Ornithologia in Latin in 1676, 
and in English with many emendations in 1678. In this work Birds 
generally were grouped in two great divisions— Land-Fowl” and 
“ Water-Fow],”—the former being subdivided into those which have a 
crooked beak and talons and those which have a straighter bill and 
claws, while the latter was separated into those which frequent waters 
and watery places and those that swim in the water—each subdivision 
being further broken up into many sections, to the whole of which 
a key was given. Thus it became possible for almost any diligent 
reader without much chance of error to refer to its proper place nearly 
every bird he was likely to meet with. Ray’s interest in ornithology con- 
tinued, and in 1694 he completed a Synopsis Methodica Aviwm, which, 
through the fault of the booksellers to whom it was entrusted, was not 
published till 1713, when Derham gave it to the world.4 
Two years after Ray’s death, Linnzus, the great reformer of Natural 
History, was born, and in 1735 appeared the first edition of the celebrated 
Systema Nature. Successive editions of this work were produced under 
1 The earliest work of Hernandez, published at Mexico in 1615, copies of which 
are very scarce, has been reprinted and edited by Dr. Ledén (8vo, Morelia: 1888). 
2 For Lichtenstein’s determination of the Birds described by Marcgrave and Piso 
see the Abhandlungen of the Berlin Academy for 1817 (pp. 155 et seqq.) 
3 The earliest list of British Birds seems to be that in the Pinax Rerum Naturalium 
of Christopher Merrett, published in 1666, and to be again mentioned presently. In 
1668 appeared the Onomasticon Zooicon of Walter Charleton, which contains some 
information on ornithology. An enlarged edition of the latter, under the title of 
Exercitationes, &c., was published in 1677 ; but neither of these writers is of much 
authority. In 1684 Sibbald in his Scotia illustrata published the earliest Fauna of 
Scotland. 
4 To this was added a supplement by Petiver on the Birds of Madras, taken from 
pictures and information sent him by one Edward Buckley of Fort St. George, being 
the first attempt to catalogue the Birds of any part of the British possessions in 
India. 
