INTRODUCTION 75 
better than any which it superseded, though this view is gained by follow- 
ing the methods which Cuvier taught. In the work just mentioned few 
details are given; but even the more elaborate classification of Birds 
contained in his Legons @ Anatomie Comparee of 1805 is based wholly on 
external characters, such as had been used by nearly all his predecessors ; 
and the Regne Animal of 1817, when he was in his fullest vigour, afforded 
not the least evidence that he had ever dissected a couple even of Birds! 
with the object of determining their relative position in his system, which 
then, as before, depended wholly on the configuration of bills, wings and 
feet. But, though apparently without such a knowledge of the anatomy 
of Birds as would enable him to apply it to the formation of that natural 
system which he was fully aware had yet to be sought, he seems to have 
been an excellent judge of the characters afforded by the bill and limbs, 
and the use he made of them, coupled with the extraordinary reputation 
he acquired on other grounds, procured for his system the adhesion for 
many years of the majority of ornithologists. Regret must always ‘be 
felt by them that his great genius was never applied in earnest to their 
branch of study, especially when we consider that had it been so the 
perversion of energy in regard to the classification of Birds witnessed in 
England for nearly twenty years, and presently to be mentioned, would 
most likely have been prevented.? 
Hitherto mention has chiefly been made of works on General Orni- 
thology, but it will be understood that these were largely aided by the 
enterprise of travellers, and as there were many of them who published 
their narratives in separate forms, their contributions have to be considered. 
Of those travellers, then, the first to be here especially named is Marsigli, 
the fifth volume of whose Danubius Pannonico-Mysicus is devoted to the 
Birds he met with in the valley of the Danube, and appeared at the 
Hague in 1725, followed by a French translation in 1744.3 Most of the 
many pupils whom [inneus sent to foreign countries submitted their 
discoveries to him, but the respective travels of Kalm, Hasselqvist and 
Osbeck in North America, the Levant and China were published separ- 
ately.t The incessant journeys of Pallas and his colleagues— Falk, 
Georgi, J. G. and 8. G. Gmelin, Giildenstiidt, Lepechin and others—in 
1 So little regard did he pay to the Osteology of Birds that, according to De 
Blainville (Jour. de Phys. xcii. p. 187, note), the skeleton of a Fowl to which was 
attached the head of a Hornbill was for a long time exhibited in the Museum of - 
Comparative Anatomy at Paris! Yet, in order to determine the difference of struc- 
ture in their organs of voice, Cuvier, as he says in his Lecons (iv. p. 464), dissected 
- more than 150 species of Birds. Unfortunately for him, as will appear in the sequel, 
it seems not to have occurred to him to use any of the results he obtained as the basis 
of a classification. 
2 Tt is unnecessary to enumerate the various editions of the Reyne Animal. Of 
the English translations, that edited by Griffiths and Pidgeon is the most complete. 
The ornithological portion of it, contained in three volumes, received many additions 
from John Edward Gray, and appeared i in 1829, but even at ‘that time must have been 
lamentably deficient. 
3 Though much later in date, the Iter per Poseganam Sclavonie of Piller and 
Mitterpacher, published at Buda in 1783, may perhaps be here most conveniently 
mentioned. 
4 The results of Forskal’ s travels in the Levant, published after his death by 
Niebuhr, require mention, though the ornithology they contain is but scant, 
