INTRODUCTION II 
is not too much to say that Buffon’s florid fancy revelled in such a subject 
as was that on which he now exercised his brilliant pen; but it would be 
unjust to examine too closely what to many of his contemporaries seemed 
sound philosophical reasoning under the light that has since burst upon 
us. Strictly orthodox though he professed to be, there were those, both 
among his own countrymen and foreigners, who could not read his 
speculative indictments of the workings of Nature without a shudder ; 
and it is easy for any one in these days to frame a reply, pointed with 
ridicule, to such a chapter as he wrote on the wretched fate of the Wood- 
pecker. In the nine volumes devoted to the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux 
there are passages which will for ever live in the memory of those that 
carefully read them, however much occasional expressions, or even the 
general tone of the author, may grate upon their feelings. He too was 
the first man who formed any theory that may be called reasonable of 
the Geographical Distribution of Animals, though this theory was 
scarcely touched in the ornithological portion of his work, and has since 
proved to be not in accordance with facts. He proclaimed the variability 
of species in opposition to the views of Linnzus as to their fixity, and 
moreover supposed that this variability arose in part by degradation.! 
Taking his labours as a whole, there cannot be a doubt that he enormously 
enlarged the purview of naturalists, and, even if limited to Birds, that, 
on the completion of his work upon them in 1783, Ornithology stood in 
a very different position from that which it had before occupied. Because 
he opposed the system of Linnzus he has been said to be opposed to 
systems in general; but that is scarcely correct, for he had a system of 
his own ; and, as we now see it, it appears neither much better nor much 
worse than the systems which had been hitherto invented, or perhaps 
than any which was propounded for many years to come. It is certain 
that he despised any kind of scientific phraseology—a crime in the eyes 
of those who consider precise nomenclature to be the end of science ; but 
those who deem it merely a means whereby knowledge can be securely 
stored will take a different view—and have done so. 
Great as were the services of Buffon to Ornithology in one direction, 
those of a wholly different kind rendered by our countryman John 
Latham must not be overlooked. In 1781 he began a work the practical 
utility of which was immediately recognized. This was his General 
Synopsis of Birds, and, though formed generally on the model of Linnzus 
greatly diverged in some respects therefrom. The classification was 
modified, chiefly on the older lines of Willughby and Ray, and certainly 
for the better ; but no scientific nomenclature was adopted, which, as the 
author subsequently found, was a change for the worse. His scope was 
co-extensive with that of Brisson, but Latham did not possess the inborn 
faculty of picking out the characters wherein one species differs from another. ° 
His opportunities of becoming acquainted with Birds were hardly inferior 
to Brisson’s, for during Latham’s long lifetime there poured in upon him 
countless new discoveries from all parts of the world, but especially from 
the newly-explored shores of Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean. 
1 See Prof. Mivart’s address to the Section of Biology, Rep. Brit, Association 
(Sheffield Meeting), 1879, p. 356. 
