INTRODUCTION Bo) 
most peaceable ornithologists found it best to bend to the furious blast, 
and in some sort to acquiesce at least in the phraseology of the self- 
styled interpreters of Creative Will. But, while thus lamenting this 
unfortunate perversion into a mistaken channel of ornithological energy, 
we must not over-blame those who caused it. Macleay indeed never 
pretended to a high position in this branch of science, his tastes lying in 
the direction of Entomology ;-but few of their countrymen knew more 
of Birds than did Swainson and Vigors ; and, while the latter, as editor 
for many years of the Zoological Journal, and the first Secretary of the 
Zoological Society, has especial claims to the regard of all zoologists, so 
the former’s indefatigable pursuit of Natural History, and conscientious 
labour in its behalf—among other ways by means of his graceful pencil 
—deserve to be remembered as a set-off against the injury he unwittingly 
caused, 
It is now incumbent upon us to take a rapid survey of the orni- 
thological works which come more or less under the designation of 
“Faun” ;! but these are so numerous that it will be necessary to limit 
this survey, as before indicated, to those countries alone which form the 
homes of English people, or are commonly visited by them in ordinary 
travel. 
Beginning with our Antipodes, it is hardly needful to go further 
back than Sir Walter Buller’s beautiful Birds of New Zealand (Ato, 
1872-73; ed. 2, 2 vols. 1888), with coloured plates by Mr. Keulemans, 
and the same author’s Manual of the Birds of New Zealand (8vo, 1882), 
founded on the former; but justice requires that mention be made of 
the labours of G. R. Gray, first in the Appendix to Dieffenbach’s Travels 
in New Zealand (1848) and then in the ornithological portion of the 
Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. ‘Erebus’ and ‘ Terror, begun in 1844, 
but left unfinished from the following year until completed by Dr. 
Sharpe in 1876. A considerable number of valuable papers on the 
Ornithology of the country by Sir James Hector and Sir Julius Von 
Haast, Prof. Hutton, Mr. Potts and others are to be found in the Trans- 
actions and Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute. 
Passing to Australia, we have the first good description of some of its 
Birds in the several old voyages and in Latham’s works before men- 
tioned. Shaw’s Zoology of New Holland (4to, 1794), though unfinished, 
- added that of a few more, as did J. W. Lewin’s Birds of New Holland 
(4to, London : 1808), of which, under the title of A Natural History of 
the Birds of New South Wales, a second edition, with 26 instead of 18 
plates, appeared in 1822, the year after the author’s death, and a third 
with additions by Eyton, Gould and others in 1838. Gould’s great 
Dirds of Australia has been already named, and he subsequently repro- 
duced with some additions the text of that work under the title of 
Handbook to the Birds of Australia (2 vols. 8vo, 1865). In 1866 Mr. 
Diggles commenced a similar publication, The Ornithology of Australia, 
but the coloured plates are not comparable with those of his predecessor. 
This is still incomplete, though the parts that appeared were collected to 
1 A very useful list of more gencral scope is given as the Appendix to an Address 
by Mr. Sclater to the British Association in 1875 (Report, pt. ii. pp. 114-188). 
