Z0 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
Unfortunately he was too soon in the field to avail himself, even had he 
been so minded, of the convenient mode of nomenclature brought into 
use by Linneus, and it is only in the last two volumes of Brisson’s 
Ornithologie that any reference is made to the tenth edition of the Systema 
Nature, in which the binomial method was introduced. It is certain 
that the first four volumes were written if not printed before that method 
was promulgated, and when the fame of Linnzus as a zoologist rested on 
little more than the very meagre sixth edition of the Systema Nature and 
the first edition of his Fawna Suecica. Brisson has been charged with 
jealousy of, if not hostility to, the great Swede, and it is true that in the 
preface to his Ornithologie he complains of the insufficiency of the Linnean 
characters, but, when one considers his much better acquaintance with 
Birds, such criticism must be allowed to be pardonable if not wholly 
just. This work was in French, with a parallel translation in Latin, 
which last (edited, it is said, by Pallas) was reprinted separately at Leyden 
three years afterwards. 
In 1767 there was issued at Paris a book entitled L’histoire naturelle 
eclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, VOrnithologie. This was the 
work of Salerne, published after his death, and is often spoken of as being 
a mere translation of Ray’s Synopsis, but is thereby very inadequately 
described, for, though it is confessedly founded on that little book, a vast 
amount of fresh matter, and mostly of good quality, is added. 
The success of Edwards’s work seems to have provoked competition, 
and in 1765, at the instigation of Buffon, the younger D’Aubenton began 
the publication known as the Planches Enluminéez Whistoire naturelle, 
which appearing in forty-two parts was not completed till 1780, when the 
plates} it contained reached the number of 1008—all coloured, as its title 
intimates, and nearly all representing Birds. This enormous work was 
subsidized by the French Government ; and, though the figures are devoid 
of artistic merit, they display the species they are intended to depict 
with sufficient approach to fidelity to ensure recognition in most cases 
without fear of error, which in the absence of any text is no small praise.? 
But Buffon was not content with merely causing to be published this 
unparalleled set of plates. He seems to have regarded the work just 
named as a necessary precursor to his own labours in Ornithology. His 
Histoire Naturelle, générale et particuliere, was begun in 1749, and in 1770 
he brought out, with the assistance of Guénau de Montbeillard,® the first 
volume of that grand undertaking relating to Birds, which, for the first 
time, became the theme of one who possessed real literary capacity. It 
* They were drawn and engraved by Martinet, who himself began in 1787 a 
Histoire des Oiseaux with small coloured plates which have some merit, but the text 
is worthless. The work seems not to have been finished, and is rare. For the 
opportunity of seeing a copy I was indebted to my kind friend the late Mr. Gurney. 
? Between 1767 and 1776 there appeared at Florence a Storia Naturale degli 
Uccelli, in five folio volumes, containing a number of ill-drawn and ill-coloured figures 
from the collection of Giovanni Gerini, an ardent collector who, having died in 1751, 
must be acquitted of any share in the work, which, though sometimes attributed to - 
him, is that of certain learned men who did not happen to be ornitholegists (¢f. Savi, 
Ornithologia Toscana, i. Introduzione, Dp. .Va)s 
° He retired on the completion of the sixth volume, and thereupon Buffon 
associated Bexon with himself 
