THE HUMMING BIRDS. 259 



The extent to which our knowledge of Humming Birds has grown 

 may be realized when it is considered that in 1758, when the tenth 

 edition of LinmBus's Systema Natune was published, only eighteen 

 species were known, while at the present time the total number of rec- 

 ognizable species and subspecies is not far from five hundred. The 

 gradual evolution of our knowledge on the subject is thus outlined by 

 Dr. Coues in the bibliography from which we have previously quoted : 



In 1758, when Linmeus applied his system consistently to birds, in the tenth, edi- 

 tion of the Systema Natime, he used the classic word Trochilm for a genus coexten- 

 sive with the modern family Trochilidcv, and catalogued 18 species, mostly based upon 

 descriptions or figures furnished by Seba, Brown, Sloaue, Catesby, Edwards, Clusius, 

 andAlbin, with references also to the Mus. Ad. Fr. In the twelfth edition, 1766, 

 this number was increased to 22, with many additional references, as to Marcgrave, 

 Willughby, Ray, and especially Brisson. 



In 1760, the last-named famous ornithologist gave us what may be deemed the 

 first extended or in any sense " monographic" account of Trochilidw. Studiously 

 collating the already numerous notices scattered through works of the character I 

 have mentioned, as well as through the illustrated and other natural history treatises 

 of his predecessors in ornithology, he was enabled to describe with his customary 

 elaboration no fewer than 36 species and to present a copious bibliography. He 

 also made the first tenable genera of Hummers after TrocMlus, dividing the whole 

 family into two groups, Polytmus and Mellisuga, one containing large species with 

 curved bills, the other small species with straight bills. In this action of Brisson's 

 we see the origin of the curious fashion which so long endured among French writers, 

 that of distinguishing " Colibris " from " Oiseaux-niouches "' among Tmchilidw. It is 

 also notable as the starting-point of a generic subdivision of the group which was 

 destined at length to reach the farcical and scandalous extreme of some 350 genera 

 for few more than 400 known species. 



In 1779, Buffoii adopted the same two divisions of "Colibris" and "Oiseaux- 

 inouches." presenting 19 species of the former and 24 of the latter group, a. total of 

 43 Troohilidce. If we except the mere naming and describing of some additional 

 species by Gmeliu and Latham, nearly all that had been learned of the birds up to 

 the close of the last century was reflected in the works of these two famous French 

 authors. 



In 1788, the industrious but indiscriminate and incompetent compiler of the Thir- 

 teenth edition of the Syst. Nat. produced a total of 65 species of Trochilus. None 

 were described except at second-hand, but to many of them binomial names were 

 first affixed. Two years afterward 65 species of TrocMlus were recorded in the 

 Ind. Orn. of Latham.* 



We are thus brought, by the stepping-stones of but few works requiring special 

 mention here, to the opening of the nineteenth century, which saw Audebert and 

 Vieillot's luxurious work, Ois. Bore's, perhaps the first ornithological work which 



ily this has been with writers. An "Addendum to the Trochilidfe (pp. 690-692), 

 which embodies a systematic review of Trochilidme literature, and an " Index Gen- 

 erurn Trochilidarum " (pp. 692-696), consisting of an alphabetical list, with refer- 

 ences, of no less than four hundred and six different generic names (including some- 

 times two or more different spellings of the same name), render this bibliography 

 very complete up to date, and quite indispensable to any one doing special work upon 

 this group of birds. 



* The eighth volume, 1812, of Shaw's Gen. Zool. gave 70 species of Trochilus. 



