J66 BIRDS. 



CLASS II. BIRDS. ( Aves.) 



Vertebrated animals, with red and warm blood, respiring by 

 lungs, and the young of which are produced from eggs. 

 Body covered with feathers, and general conformation or- 

 ganized for flying. 



ARISTOTLE and Pliny, the fathers of Natural History, are al- 

 most the only writers of antiquity who have attempted to de- 

 tail the manners or distinguish the species of Birds ; the former 

 in his History of Animals, and the latter in the tenth book of 

 his Natural History. After the revival of letters, Pierre Belon 

 in 1553, and Conrad Gesner in 1555, each published a work 

 on Birds. In Belongs work, a thin folio with wooden cuts, these 

 animals are classed by their manners, or characterized by the 

 places where they are found. Thus the Birds of Prey form the 

 first class, the Waders the second, the Swimmers the third, and 

 the birds which nestle in trees or on the ground the fourth. Ges- 

 ner's Treatise on Birds forms the third volume of his History of 

 Animals, and is also adorned with engravings on wood. Be- 

 sides alphabetical tables of the names of birds in all the known 

 languages, and descriptive characters, his work contains refe- 

 rences to all the writers within the compass of his knowledge 

 who had noticed this interesting class of animals. 



Aldrovandus, a physician of Bologna, published a system of 

 Ornithology in 1599, in which, following Belon, he classed the 

 birds according to the places which they frequented, and the 

 nature of their food, but added a great number of new descrip- 

 tions. It is illustrated with wooden cuts, which, however, are 

 in general inaccurate representations. Johnston followed in 

 1657 with a condensed compilation of all that had been done 

 before him. The figures, however, being engraved on copper, 

 are many of them above mediocrity. 



Francis Willoughby, an English gentleman, who had paid 

 great attention to Natural History, and whose System of Ornitho- 

 logy was published under the superintendence of the celebrated 

 Ray in 1678, after its author's death, may be regarded as the 

 first systematic writer on this subject. This excellent work is 



