Birds. 85 



Birds," in which Gray focussed all his knowledge acquired since 

 the " Genera of Birds " had been published, he conceived the 

 idea of labelling the collection of birds'-skins according to the 

 nomenclature of the " Handlist." He commenced by having 

 some labels printed with a " Handlist No." attached, and he then 

 proceded to tranfer the localities, etc., of the specimens (or what 

 he imagined to be these particulars) from the original labels on to 

 the " Handlist " labels, snipping off the collectors' tickets, which 

 were at the same time destroyed. Only one box of birds had been 

 thus treated by Gray, viz., the genus Pratincola, when his death 

 took place, and the collection was saved ! These remarks are not 

 made in any spirit of unkindness, for Gray was no worse than 

 any other curator of his time. At the same period Schlegel was 

 mounting every specimen as it came into the great collection at 

 Leyden, and the same system is pursued to this day in some 

 Museums, so that eveiy specimen, however rare or of historical 

 value, is doomed to destruction : it is only a question of time. 

 A mounted specimen may last six months or fifty years — accord- 

 ing to the precautions which are taken by the officers in charge of 

 the museum to exclude the light— but the result is inevitable, and 

 the specimen sooner or later becomes bleached and deteriorated. 



When I entered the service of the Museum in 1872, 

 Dr. John Edward Gray was still Keeper of the Zoological 

 Department, and Dr. Giinther was Assistant-Keeper. A new 

 era in the administration was about to commence. The 

 " Catalogue of Birds " was undertaken in a similar form to 

 Dr. Giinther's celebrated " Catalogue of Fish," and it is certain 

 that the completion of the Bird Catalogue is due to his excellent 

 management and administration. The work took 24 years to 

 complete, and ran to 27 volumes, which were written by eleven 

 diflerent authors, as has been amusingly recorded by Dr. Sclatei' 

 in the introduction to the " Avium Generum Index Alphabeticus," 

 forming vol. ix. of the " Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' 

 Club." 



" De Catalogi Avium Magni Scriptoribus undecim." 



" Sharpius incepit scripsitque volumina multa ; 

 Seebohmus sequitur, promptus ad auxilium. 

 Teutonicus, zelo plenus, venit indc Gadovus, 

 Salviiiusque honam prsehet amicus opem. 

 Jam Sclaterus adest, tria longa volumina complens 

 Americanarum notus amans avium. 



