INTRODUCTION 29 
obsolete, and most of them almost useless except as matters of antiquarian 
interest. It will be enough merely to name Duméril’s Zoologie Analytique 
(1806) and Gravenhorst’s Vergleichende Uebersicht des linneischen und einiger 
neuern zooloyischen Systeme (1807); nor need we linger over Shaw’s 
General Zoology, a pretentious compilation continued by Stephens. The 
last seven of its fourteen volumes include the Class Aves, and the first 
part of them appeared in 1809, but, the original author dying in 1815, 
when only two volumes of Birds were published, the remainder was 
brought to an end in 1826 by his successor, who afterwards became 
well known as an entomologist. The engravings which these volumes 
contain are mostly bad copies, often of bad figures, though many are 
piracies from Bewick, and the whole is a most unsatisfactory performance. 
Of a very different kind is the next we have to notice, the Prodromus 
Systematis Mammalium et Aviwm of Illiger, published at Berlin in 1811, 
which must in its day have been a valuable little manual, and on many 
points it may now be consulted to advantage—the characters of the 
genera being admirably given, and good explanatory lists of the technical 
terms of Ornithology furnished. The classification was quite new, and 
made a step distinctly in advance of anything that had before appeared. 
In 1816 Vieillot published at Paris an Analyse dune nouvelle Ornithologie 
élémentaire, containing a method of classification which he had tried in 
vain to get printed before, both in Turin and in London.? Some of the 
ideas in this are said to have been taken from Illiger; but the two 
systems seem to be wholly distinct. Vieillot’s was afterwards more 
fully expounded in the series of articles which he contributed between 
1816 and 1819 to the Second Edition of the Nouveaw Dictionnaire 
d Histoire Naturelle, containing much valuable information. The views 
of neither of these systematizers pleased Temminck, who in 1817 replied 
rather sharply to Vieillot in some Observations sur la Classification métho- 
dique des Otseaux, a pamphlet published at Amsterdam, and prefixed to 
the second edition of his Manuel d’ Ornithologie, which appeared in 1820, 
an Analyse du Systeme Géuéral @ Ornithologie. This proved a great success, 
and his arrangement, though by no means simple,’ was not only adopted 
by many ornithologists of almost every country, but still has some 
adherents. The following year Ranzani of Bologna, in his Elementi di 
1 Tlliger may be considered the founder of the school of somenclatural purists. 
He would not tolerate any of the “ barbarous” generic terms adopted by other writers, 
though some had been in use for many years. 
2 The method was communicated to the Turin Academy, 10th January 1814, and 
was ordered to be printed (Mém. Ac. Sc. Turin, 1813-14, p. xxviii.) ; but, through 
the derangements of that stormy period, the order was never carried out (em. Accad. 
Sc. Torino, xxiii. p. xcvii.). The minute-book of the Linnean Society of London shews 
that his Prolusio was read at meetings of that Society between 15th November 1814 
and 21st February 1815. Why it was not at once accepted is not told, but the entry 
respecting it, which must be of much later date, in the “Register of Papers” is 
‘Published already.” It is due to Vieillot to mention these facts, as he has been 
accused of publishing his method in haste to anticipate some of Cuvier’s views, but he 
might well complain of the delay in London. Some reparation has been made to his 
memory by the reprinting of his Analyse by the Willughby Society. 
% He recognized sixteen Orders of Birds, while Vieillot had been content with five. 
and Illiger with seven. 
d 
