

/rVi/yvt- 



3. BIRDS. 



By R. BOWDLER SHARPE. 



I. General Sketch. 



Sir Hans Sloane's Museum undoubtedly formed the ground- 

 work on which the great Zoological Collection of the British 

 Museum was founded. In 1753 the number of ornithological 

 specimens was stated to be 1,172 ; these, however, were not all 

 mounted birds, but contained many fragmentary specimens, such 

 as Hornbill's heads, and odd bones. His collection of zoological 

 objects could never have been of the same importance as his 

 Herbarium (cf. Hist. Coll., vol. i.. Botany, p. 81), or even of his 

 collection of minerals (cf. Hist. Coll., Minerals, jjp. 355, 356), 

 and, as far as I know, not a single specimen of a bird from the 

 Sloane Collection now exists in the Museum, All have perished. 



Many specimens procured during Captain Cook's voyages 

 were either in the Banksian Collection or in the British Museum, 

 or were supposed to be there. These specimens have also 

 perished, the reason probably being that they were inadequately 

 prepared, were always mounted, and, from a lack of appreciation 

 of their priceless value, were allowed to decay, thi'ough a want 

 of proper curatorial knowledge. In Latham's " General Synopsis 

 of Birds" (1781-1785) are mentioned a great number of species 

 described from specimens in the British Museum, not one of 

 which now survives. 



There is apparently but one relic of the birds obtained by 

 Captain Cook, viz. a Tree Starling, Aplonis ulietensis, which has 

 persisted in a kind of mummified state to the present day, after 

 having been mounted and exposed to the dust and light of the 

 old British Museum for nearly a century. 



The Montagu Collection of British birds was purchased by the 

 nation in 1816. Colonel Montagu, who had corresponded with 

 Gilbert White, was a first-rate ornithologist in his day. Not one 

 of his specimens was properly prepared — apparently no preserva- 

 tive worthy of the name having been used — and I have felt the 

 greatest anxiety as to the preserving of the relics of this ancient 

 British collection. The bones of the neck and other bones of the 

 body were left in the specimens, which Avere set up by no means 



