JANUARY 26, 1899J 



NA TURE 



297 



formidable task, commenced in 1874, which has occu- 

 pied the time and energies of some of the leading ornith- 

 ologists of the present day during the past twenty-five 

 years. ¥o\ it must be recollected that this work, although 

 modestly entitled a " Catalogue of the Birds in the British 

 Museum," is far more than a mere list of specimens. It 

 gives, in fact, besides a list of the specimens in the 

 British Museum, an account of all the known species of 

 birds, embracing their synonyms [i.e. the various names 

 which have been applied to them by different authors), 

 descriptions of their various plumages, their countries 

 and all other necessary information concerning them. 

 Such a work, although it has been attempted on several 

 occasions, has never been brought to a conclusion since 

 Latham completed his "General History of Birds" in 

 1824. And in Latham's days, it should be remembered, 

 a general history of birds was a comparatively easy 

 matter. Latham was acquainted with only some 4300 

 species of birds, which he grouped in 112 genera. The 

 British Museum Catalogue gives us an account of 

 11,617 species of birds, arranged in 2255 genera, show- 

 ing that our knowledge of the class Aves has increased 

 nearly three-fold since 1824. 



The "Catalogue of Birds" was commenced in 1S74, 

 and finished in i8g8. As completed, it forms twenty- 

 seven octavo volumes, varying in e.xtent from 300 to Soo 

 pages each, and illustrated by numerous coloured plates. 

 We give a list of the authors, contents, and dates of 

 issue. 



The Catalogue was commenced in 1872 by Dr. R. 

 Bowdler .Sharpe, soon after he had succeeded the late 

 George Robert Gray in the charge of the national 

 collection of birds. To the late Dr. John Edward Gray, 

 then Keeper of the Zoological Department, must be 

 ascribed the credit of starting it, though he only lived to 

 NO. 1526, VOL. 59] 



see the first volume brought to completion. This was 

 issued in 1874, and contained an account of the diurnal 

 birds of prey ; it was followed in 1875 by the second 

 volume, also prepared by Dr. Sharpe, devoted to the 

 owls. After this Dr. Sharpe proceeded to attack the 

 long array of Passeres, an order which embraces rather 

 more than half the whole number of known birds, and 

 got out two volumes on the subject in 1877 and 1879. 

 The late Henry Seebohm — a distinguished traveller and 

 ornithologist — one of whose pet groups was the thrushes 

 and their allies, was then invited by Dr. Gunther, who 

 had succeeded Dr. Gray in the keepership of the zoo- 

 logical department, to prepare the catalogue of this 

 family. Seebohm produced it in 1 881, after what, he tells 

 us, was " two close years of application " to a very difficult 

 task. Meanwhile Dr. Sharpe was working away at other 

 groups of the great Passerinie Order, and succeeded in 

 issuing two more volumes (vols. vi. and vii.) in 1881 and 

 1883. By this time, however, Dr. Gunther had quite 

 satisfied himself that if the Catalogue of Birds was to be 

 finished within a reasonable period it would be neces- 

 sary to obtain further aid from outside. The task was 

 far too vast for the unassisted efforts of a single ornith- 

 ologist, who had, moreover, the charge and arrangement 

 of the enormous national collection of birds on his 

 shoulders, however hard he might work. Failing to find 

 any qualified British ornithologist with leisure to help 

 him. Dr. Gunther naturally turned to Germany, and in- 

 vited the aid of Dr. Hans Gadow (now settled at Cam- 

 bridge), to whom we are indebted for the compilation of 

 vols. viii. and i.\. of the " Bird-Catalogue." Dr. Giinther 

 also managed to persuade Mr. Sclater, the Secretary of 

 the Zoological Society, who was the possessor of a very 

 full series of American birds, not only to part with them 

 in favour of the national collection, but also to under- 

 take to prepare the catalogues of some of the groups that 

 he had made the special subjects of his studies. It thus 

 came to pass that three volumes of the catalogue of 

 Passeres, and half of a fourth volume relating to the Scan- 

 sores, were written by Mr. Sclater. The very difficult and 

 laborious task of cataloguing the humming birds (Trochi- 

 lidse), with some 500 species, was in the meanwhile 

 entrusted to the late Mr. Osbert Salvin, and, we need 

 hardly say, was most efficiently performed by that accom- 

 plished and accurate naturalist. Mr. Hartert (of the Tring 

 Museum) joined forces with Mr. Salvin, and contributed 

 an account of the swifts and goat-suckers to the same 

 volume, which forms the sixteenth of the series. .Another 

 expert — the late Mr. Hargitt, was employed on the cata- 

 logue of woodpeckers (vol. xviii.) — a group to which he had 

 paid special attention, while Captain Shelley undertook the 

 cuckoos. Count Salvadori the parrots and pigeons, and 

 Mr. Ogilvie-Grant the game-birds — groups with which, in 

 each case, the authors were already respectively familiar. 

 In this way, at the end of 1893, twenty-two volumes of 

 the Catalogue had been brought to a conclusion, and 

 only five more remained to be accomplished. -Some 

 little difficulty, we believe, was experienced by Dr. 

 Giinther in allocating these five volumes in a satis- 

 factory manner, but Mr. Howard Saunders, our chief 

 authority on the Laridas (gulls and terns), was obviously 

 the [proper person to undertake their enrolment in the 

 national catalogue, and at the same time his most valuable 

 private collection of these birds was secured for the 

 Museum. Nor was it less obvious that the late Osbert 

 Salvin was the person to whom the charge of the petrels, 

 a very difficult group, of which he had long made a 

 special study, should be assigned. Both these selections 

 were most satisfactory, and the result was that vol. x.w., 

 produced by the joint efforts of these two ornithologists 

 in 1896, is one of the best of the long series. .At the 

 same time the veteran systematist, Count Salvadori, of 

 Turin, undertook the final volume (xxvii.1, containing the 

 Anseres (ducks and geese), the tinamous and the ostriches; 



