4d4 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 
speak.! One of the few appearing since, with the same scope, that are not 
borrowed is Jardine’s Birds of Great Britain and Ireland (4 vols. 8vo, 
1838-43), forming part of his Naturalist’s Library; and Gould’s Birds 
of Great Britain has been already mentioned.2 Two imposing folios, with 
very good plates by Mr. Keulemans, were issued with the title of Rough 
Notes on Birds in the British Islands during 1881 to 1887, by the late 
Mr. Booth (whose “ Museum” is one of the popular sights of Brighton), 
and contain a great number of personal observations, though few of any 
novelty or value, while as a record of butchery the work fortunately stands 
alone. Lord Lilford’s Colowred Figures of the Birds of the British Islands, 
begun in 1885 and now nearly completed, has given great pleasure to 
many lovers of Birds, by whom such a series of plates was strongly 
desired, for they are generally good, and some of the latest, by Mr. 
Thorburn, are exquisite. 
The good effects of “‘ Faunal” works such as those named in the fore- 
going rapid survey none can doubt. ‘Every kingdom, every province, 
should have its own monographer,” wrote Gilbert White, and experience 
has proved the truth of his assertion. It is from the labours of mono- 
1 Yet two of them have attained great popularity, and have exerted such an in- 
fluence in this country, that as a matter of history their authors, both deceased, must 
here be named, though I would willingly pass them over, for I have not a word to 
say in favour of either. By every well-informed ornithologist the History of British 
Birds of Mr. Morris has long been known to possess no authority ; but about Mr. 
Seebohm’s volumes with the same title there is much difference of opinion, some hold- 
ing them in high esteem. The greater part of their text, when it is correct, will be 
found on examination to be a paraphrase of what others had already written, for 
even the information given on the author’s personal experience, which was doubtless 
considerable, extends little or no further. But all this is kept studiously out of sight, 
and the whole is so skilfully dressed as to make the stalest observations seem novel 
—a merit, I am assured, in some eyes. Of downright errors and wild conjectures there 
are enough, and they are confidently asserted with the misuse of language and absence 
of reasoning power that mark all the author’s writings, though the air of scientitic 
treatment assumed throughout has deluded many an unwary reader. 
* Though contravening our plan, we must for its great merits notice here the late 
Mr. More’s series of papers in The Ibis for 1865, “On the Distribution of Birds in 
Great Britain during the Nesting Season.” 
* Local ornithologies are far too numerous to be named at length. Fortunately 
Mr. Christy has published a Catalogue of them (Zool. 1890, pp. 247-267, and 
separately, London: 1891), and only a few of the most remarkable and the most 
recent need here be mentioned. The first three volumes of Thompson’s Natural 
History of Ireland (1849-51) cannot be passed over, as containing an excellent 
account, to equal which no approach has since been made, of the Birds of that 
country, though there are many important papers by later Irish ornithologists, as 
Messrs. Barrett-Hamilton, Blake-Knox, H. L. Jameson, R. Paterson, Ussher and 
Warren, and conspicuously by Mr. Barrington. For North Britain, Robert Gray’s 
Birds of the West of Scotland (1871), and the series of district Vertebrate Faunas, begun 
by Messrs. Harvie-Brown and T. E. Buckley, of which 7 volumes have now appeared— 
treating of (1) Sutherland, Caithness and West Cromarty, (2) Outer Hebrides, (3) Argyll 
and Inner Hebrides, (4) Iona and Mull (this by Graham), (5) Orkney and (6 and 7) 
Moray—while others, as Dee and Shetland, are in progress, calls for especial remark, as 
does Mr. Muirhead’s Birds of Berwickshire (2 vols. 1889-96) ; but for want of space 
many meritorious papers in journals, by Alston, Dalgleish, W. Evans, Lumsden and others 
must here be unnoticed. The local works on English Birds are still more numerous, 
but among them may be especially named the oldest of all, Tucker’s unfinished Orni- 
thologia Danmoniensis (4to, 1809), an ambitious work of which not even the whole of 
