42 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
Keulemans or Mr. Neale. In so huge an undertaking mistakes and omis- 
sions are of course to be found if any one likes the invidious task of seeking 
for them; but many of the errors imputed to this work prove on investi- 
gation to refer to matters of opinion rather than of fact, while many more 
are explicable if we remember that while the work was in progress 
Ornithology was being prosecuted with unprecedented activity, and thus 
statements which were in accordance with the best information at the 
beginning of the period were found to need modification before it 
was ended. As a whole European ornithologists have been all but 
unanimously grateful to Mr. Dresser for the way in which he brought 
this enormous labour to a successful end. A Supplement to his work is 
now nearly finished. The late M. des Murs in 1886 completed his 
Description des Oiseaux d Europe (4 vols. gr. 8vo), with coloured figures of 
the Birds and of their eggs, but it is rather a popular than a scientific 
work. The Contributions a la Fawne ornithologique de ? Europe Occidentale 
of the late M. Olphe-Galliard, contained in 41 fascicules between 1884 
and 1892, is an important work, involving a vast amount of research, and 
composed in a highly original way. The author was well read in orni- 
thological literature, for he had the accomplishment, rare among his 
countrymen, of a good acquaintance with modern languages not his own, 
and was especially observant of the doings of foreign naturalists. Yet 
the work cannot be called wholly successful, and this chiefly, it would 
seem, through the want of autoptical acquaintance with many of the 
species treated, or at least with a sufficient series of specimens, whereby 
he has been led to rely too much on the descriptions of others, with the 
usual unsatisfactory result. Still the work fully deserves attention, and 
nothing need be said of the author’s fanciful classification, for no one is 
likely to follow it. In 1890 Mr. Backhouse brought out a convenient 
little Handbook of European Birds.4 
Coming now to works on British Birds only, the first of the present 
century that requires remark is Montagu’s Ornithological Dictionary (2 
vols. 8vo, 1802; supplement 1813), the merits of which have been so 
long and so fully acknowledged both abroad and at home that no further 
comment is here wanted. In 1881 Rennie brought out a modified 
edition of it (reissued in 1833), and Newman another in 1866 (reissued 
in 1883); but those who wish to know the author’s views should consult 
the original. Next in order come the very inferior British Ornithology of 
Graves (3 vols. 8vo, 1811-21; ed. 2, 1821), and a better work with the 
same title by Hunt? (3 vols. 8vo, 1815-22), published at Norwich, but 
never finished. Then we have Selby’s Jllustrations of British Ornithology, 
two folio volumes of coloured plates engraved by himself, between 1821 
and 1833, with letterpress also in two volumes (8vo, 1825-33), a second 
1 Herr Giitke’s remarkable Vogelwarte Helgoland (Braunschweig: 1891), which 
treats of much more than European ornithology, has been elsewhere (MIGRATION, p. 
562) mentioned. It remains to say that a fair English translation by Mr. Rosenstock, 
with a preface by Mr. Harvie-Brown, has appeared under the title of Heligoland 
as an Ornithological Observatory (Edinburgh: 1895). 
* The text was written, I was told by the late Mr. Joseph Clarke, by R. C. 
Coxe, who was a schoolboy when it was begun, but died in 1863 Archdeacon of 
Lindisfarne, 
