Birds. 83 



and England was put to the test to keep pace with the pi'Ogress 

 of the Continental museums. That this country held its own so 

 well is undoubtedly due to the enthusiasm of John Edward Gray. 



His bi'other, George Robert Gray, was a man of a totally 

 different stamp, of much quieter temperament, and not moved to 

 strenuous exertion ; he had, moreover, no acquaintance with the 

 habits of birds, and Professor Newton (Diet. Birds, Intr., p. 30) 

 describes him correctly as a " thoroughly conscientious clerk." 

 This he certainly was, as he worked assiduously in a clerk-like 

 manner, with a clear comprehension of the compilation of 

 synonymy, but he had no knowledge of birds in life. A story 

 is told of him that, as he was being continually twitted about 

 his ignorance of birds in the field, he one day hired a gun, and 

 went into Hertfordshire to shoot birds. He was promptly 

 arrested by a keeper for trespassing. 



Whether the story be true or merely hen trovato, it is certain 

 that George Gray had a working knowledge of birds from their 

 skins, and during his long connection with the Zoological 

 Department, he became acquainted with all the best Ornithologists 

 of his time, so that, as the result of his own and their studies, 

 the British Museum possessed a well-named, if a small, collection 

 of birds. His greatest work was the " Genera of Birds," 

 published in three folio volumes, long ago out of print and now 

 much enhanced in price. The work was arranged on the old 

 Cuvierian classification, with its rostral system, Tenuirostres, 

 Fissirostres, etc., but the characters of families and genera were 

 detailed, with a list of the species known up to the time of publica- 

 tion. Illustrations were given of the genei'ic characters of birds, 

 most of these being drawn by D. W. Mitchell, who was subse- 

 quently Secretary of the Zoological Society. Mitchell also executed 

 most of the coloured plates for Gray's work, but a few were done by 

 Josef Wolf, who had not long before come to England, but who 

 was already taking his place as the greatest natural-history artist 

 the world has ever seen. 



As a Museum curator it is possible that Gray did the collec- 

 tions some harm, but for this the system of management then 

 in vogue was chiefly responsible, even if he cannot be entirely 

 acquitted of a want of judgment. It was the custom, not only in 

 the British Museum, but in every other museum in Europe, to 

 mount every specimen of value in the public galleries : the more 

 valuable the specimen, the more was it exposed in the gallery, 

 there to perish. The idea of the ojffieers in charge of the 



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