28 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
Keulemans’s best manner, many rare species of Birds are figured, some of 
them for the first time. 
All the works lately named have been purposely treated at some 
length, since being costly they are not easily accessible. The few next 
to be mentioned, being of smaller size (octavo), may be within reach of 
more persons, and therefore can be passed over in a briefer fashion without 
detriment. In many ways, however, they are nearly as important. 
Swainson’s Zoological Illustrations, in three volumes, containing 182 
plates, whereof 70 represent Birds, appeared between 1820 and 1821, 
and in 1829 a Second Series of the same was begun by him, which, 
extending to another three volumes, contained 48 more plates of Birds 
out of 136, and was completed in 1833. All the figures were drawn by 
the author, who as an ornithological artist had no rival in his time. 
Every plate is not beyond criticism, but his worst drawings shew more 
knowledge of bird-life than do the best of his English or French con- 
temporaries, A work of somewhat similar character, but one in which 
the letterpress is of greater value, is the Centurie Zoologique of Lesson, a 
single volume that though bearing the date 1830 on its title-page, is 
believed to have been begun in 1829,! and was certainly not finished 
until 1831. It received the benefit of Isidore Geoffroy St.-Hilaire’s 
assistance. Notwithstanding its name it only contains 80 plates, but of 
them 42, all by Prétre and in his usual stiff style, represent Birds. 
Concurrently with this volume appeared Lesson’s Traité d’ Ornithologie, 
which is dated 1831, and may perhaps be here most conveniently 
mentioned, Its professedly systematic form strictly relegates it to 
another group of works, but the presence of an “ Atlas” (also in octavo) 
of 119 plates to some extent justifies its notice in this place. Between 
1831 and 1834 the same author brought out, in continuation of his 
Centurve, his Illustrations de Zoologie with 60 plates, 20 of which represent 
Birds, In 1832 Kittlitz began to publish some Kupfertafeln zur Natur- 
geschichte der Vogel, in which many new species are figured ; but the work 
came to an end with its 36th plate in the following year. In 1845 
Reichenbach commenced with his Praktische Naturgeschichte der Vogel the 
extraordinary series of illustrated publications which, under titles far too 
numerous here to repeat, ended in or about 1855, and are commonly 
known collectively as his Vollsttindigste Naturgeschichte der Vogel.2, Herein 
are contained more than 900 coloured and more than 100 uncoloured 
plates, which are crowded with the figures of Birds, a large proportion of 
them reduced copies from other works, and especially those of Gould. 
It now behoves us to turn to general and particularly systematic 
works in which plates, if they exist at all, form but an accessory to the 
text. These need not detain us for long, since, however well some of 
them may have been executed, regard being had to their epoch, and 
whatever repute some of them may have achieved, they are, so far as 
general information and especially classification is concerned, wholly 
1 In 1828 he had brought out, under the title of Manuel d’ Ornithologie, two handy 
duodecimos which are very good of their kind. 
* Technically speaking they are in quarto, but their size is so small that they may 
be well spoken of here. In 1879 Dr. A. B. Meyer brought out an Index to them, 
