INTRODUCTION 3 
edition of the first volume being also issued (1833), for the author, having 
yielded to the pressure of the “Quinarian” doctrines then in vogue, 
thought it necessary to adjust his classification accordingly, and it must 
be admitted that for information the second edition is best. In 1828 
Fleming brought out his History of British Animals (8vo), in which the 
Birds are treated at considerable length (pp. 41-146), though not with 
great success. In 1835 Jenyns (afterwards Blomefield) produced an 
excellent Manual of British Vertebrate Animals, a volume (8vo) executed 
with great scientific skill, the Birds again receiving due attention (pp. 
49-286), and the descriptions of the various species being as accurate as 
they are terse! In the same year began the Colowred LIIllustrations of 
British Birds and their Eggs of H. L. Meyer (4to), which was completed in 
1843, whereof a second edition (7 vols. 8vo, 1842-50) was brought out, 
and subsequently (1852-57) a reissue of the latter. In 1836 appeared 
Eyton’s History of the rarer British Birds, intended as a sequel to Bewick’s 
well-known volumes, to which no important additions had been made 
since the issue of 1821. The year 1837 saw the beginning of two 
remarkable works by Macgillivray and Yarrell respectively, and each 
entituled A History of British Birds. Of the first, undoubtedly the more 
original and in many respects the more minutely accurate, mention will 
again have to be made, and, save to state that its five volumes were not 
completed till 1852, nothing more needs now to be added. The second 
unquestionably became the standard work on British Ornithology, a fact 
due in part to its numerous illustrations, many of them indeed ill drawn, 
though all carefully engraved, but much more to the breadth of the 
author’s views and the judgment with which they were set forth. In 
practical acquaintance with the internal structure of Birds, and in the 
perception of its importance in classification, he was certainly not behind 
his rival; but he well knew that his public in a Book of Birds not only 
did not want a series of anatomical treatises, but would even resent their 
introduction. He had the art to conceal his art, and his work was there- 
fore a success, while the other was unhappily a failure. Yet with all his 
knowledge he was deficient in some of the qualities which a great 
naturalist ought to possess. His conception of what his work should be 
seems to have been perfect, his execution was not equal to the conception. 
However, he was not the first nor will he be the last to fall short in this 
respect. For him it must be said that, whatever may have been done by 
the generation of British ornithologists now becoming advanced in life, 
he educated them to do it; nay, his influence even extends to a younger 
generation still, though they may hardly be aware of it. Of Yarrell’s 
work in three volumes, a second edition was published in 1845, a third 
in 1856, and a fourth, begun in 1871, and almost wholly rewritten, was 
finished in 1885 by Mr. Saunders, who in 1888 and 1889, carrying out 
the suggestion of a brother ornithologist, skilfully condensed the whole 
into a single volume, forming a useful Manual of British Birds, illustrated 
by the same figures as the larger work. Of other compilations based upon 
it, without which they could not have been composed, there is no need to 
1 A series of MS. notes which he gave to the Cambridge Museum shews that he 
was largely aided by his brother-in-law Henslow, the botanist. 
