GENERAL HISTORY 



OF 



BIRDS. 



CHAPTER I. 



"This subject of ornithology is, indeed, an arduous one, whose verj' difficulty provokes 

 investigation; for here an aspiring^ mind may try its strength, and if it succeed, the 

 triumph is neither low nor grovelling, but splendid and honourable; and should failure 

 ensue, the attempt is noble and commendable." — Aldrovandi, 1645. 



THE ENGLISH NAMES. 



Birds are the favorites of a greater proportion of humanity than any 

 other animals. This is manifest in many ways; by the extent to which they 

 are kept as pets; by the number of collectors of their skins or eggs or, in other 

 words, of "ornithologists;" by the number of books yearly, monthly, indeed, 

 almost daily, published, and, lastly, the number of magazines devoted to their 

 consideration. That interest is likewise exemplitied in the very word which 

 they now bear among the English-speaking peoples. 



Birds was not the name by which the class was always designated by the 

 English and it stands out isolated and peculiar to our stock, and unlike that 

 current in any other nation. Most of our group-names of animals are cognate 

 with those of our remote kinsfolk of continental Europe, the Dutch, Germans, 

 Danes and others, but so is not Birds. Our forefathers, however, did have a 

 name for the class related to theirs and that was Fowl. 



The founders of the English language brought with them from Jutland 

 and the neighboring country the word prevalent at that time for the feathered 

 creation in their native land, the Netherlands, and northern Germany; that was 

 written Fugel, Fugol or Fugul. In the course of time it underwent modifica- 

 tions into the forms Foghel, Foghle, Fowel and Fowle (with slight variants) 

 until, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Fowl became the accepted 

 orthographical form. On the continent the variation was less, the word settling 

 at last among the Germans and Dutch into Vogel, among the Danes into Fugl 

 and among the Swedes into Fogel. 



In the many centuries during which the word was being developed, the 



VJame continued to be applied generally in some form or other to all of the 



class of Aves and such usage persisted till the age of Shakespeare and the ac- 



