Migration of Birds 325 



of the life-history of the 13,000 known species of birds, 

 while scarcely a day passes without the addition of speci- 

 mens which emphasize some new fact in ornithology. It 

 was not always thus with our National Collection, and the 

 very fact that, until recently, the most valuable and reliable 

 collections of birds in this country belonged to private 

 individuals, proves that, at one time, the British Museum 

 did not possess anything like an adequate series of speci- 

 mens for the study of ornithology. A glance at the 

 examples of bird-skins which belonged to the old collec- 

 tion in the Museum is sufficient to prove this fact, for we 

 find that " North America," " Brazil," " Indian Archipelago," 

 " Africa," etc., were considered to be quite sufficient for the 

 localities of the specimens : and so little heed was given to 

 exact details in olden days that when collections, with full 

 particulars of sex, locality, and date of capture were received, 

 the original labels were destroyed, and another label sub- 

 stituted, on which these particulars were not recorded. 

 Thus much valuable evidence was lost, and the series in 

 the British Museum could not compare with the collections 

 which were being formed by private workers in this country. 

 The great German Ornithologist, Pastor C. L. Brehm, has 

 often been held up to ridicule for the number of species 

 into which he sub-divided the birds of Europe, and it is 

 certainly true that many of them had no real basis ; but the 

 minute study which he gave to the variations in European 

 birds cannot have been without its weight with the ornitholo- 

 gists who succeeded him. No influence for good, however, 

 has ever equalled that of the small band of Ornithologists 

 who founded the " British Ornithologists' Union " at Cam- 

 bridge in 1858, and by whom the publication of the ' Ibis' 

 was initiated. The names of P. L. Sclater, Alfred Newton, 

 F. D. Godman, Lord Lilford, Osbert Salvin, E. Cavendish 

 Taylor, Canon Tristram, and John Wolley, can never be 

 forgotten as the leaders of Ornithology in this country ; 



