Solandcr as an Ornitlioloyist. 131 



corner," It appears to be an outstanding blot upon that 

 Institution that all the work (scant enough) done in 

 connection with these Banksian drawings and manuscript, 

 with little exception^ has been performed gratuitously by 

 amateurs, the only two officials who have attempted any 

 work, that I can trace, being Gray and Sharpe. Ivuhl, 

 Temminckj Natterer, Bonaparte, Gould, Salvin, Godman, 

 and Mathews are the chief names associated with the 

 attempts to elucidate the problems surrounding these 

 drawings. Yet, according to the '- History of the Collections, 

 British Museum (Natural History)," Solandcr held the post 

 of Keeper of that Institution. 



Through this neglect, the correct appreciation of the 

 Solandcr names was impossible to extra-London ornitho- 

 logists^, and almost all the errors apparent in Coues's 

 ' Monograph of the Proeellariidie ' in 1864-66 are due to 

 this cause, 



A study of the literature made it apparent that more 

 manuscript had been available to the earlier students than 

 could now be seen, as these ornithologists quoted names 

 "e<r Sol. MS," which do not appear on the drawings. 

 Salvin noted this in 1876, and, although it seemed certain 

 that Gray had referred to such a manuscript as recently as 

 1871, Salvin had to conclude that it had been lost. Through 

 the persistent enquiries by Mr. Mathews, it was, however, 

 discovei'cd that a batch of manuscript carefully put away 

 and labelled as " Copies of the Solandcr MSS." was not, 

 in fact, copies, but constituted the carefully prepared 

 foolscap matter cleanly made for press purposes. From an 

 examination ot this batch, we can deduce the procedure of 

 Banks and Solandcr to have been somewhat as follows : — 

 Banks appears to have been the collector of the majority : 

 when the specimen was procured it was handed to the artist, 

 who at once made a sketch of it, in some cases painting in 

 the soft parts, in others writing in the colour on the drawing : 

 the locality was also written on the drawing, often in Banks' 

 handwriting ; then Solandcr drew up a detailed description 

 on a little slip of paper, and selected a name for the bird, 



K.2 



