100 President's Address. 



possess the inborn faculty of picking- out the characters 

 wherein one species differs from another. His opportunities 

 of becoming' acquainted with Birds were hardly inferior to 

 Brisson's, for during Latham's long' Lifetime there poured in 

 upon him countless new discoveries from all parts of the world, 

 but especially from the newly-explored shores of Australia and 

 the islands of the Pacific Ocean. The British Museum had 

 been formed, and he had access to everything it contained, in 

 addition to the abundant materials afforded him by the private 

 museum of Sir Asliton Lever. Latham entered, so far as the 

 limits of his work would allow, into the history of the Birds 

 he described, and this with evident zest, whereby lie differed 

 from his French predecessor ; but the number of cases in 

 which he erred as to the determination of his species must be 

 very great, and not unfrequently the same species is described 

 more than once. His Synopsis was finished in 1785 ; two 

 supplements were added in 1787 and 1802, and in 1790 he 

 produced a Latin abstract of the work under the title of Index 

 Omithologicus, wherein he assigned names on the Linnsean 

 method to all the species described. Between 1821 and 1828 

 he published at Winchester, in eleven volumes, an enlarged 

 edition of his original work, entitling it A General History of 

 Birds ; but his defects as a compiler, which had been manifest 

 before, rather increased with age, and the consequences were 

 not happy." 



It was decidedly unfortunate for Latham that lie so long- 

 delayed his 'Index,' for in the meantime Gmelin published 

 his edition of the ' Sy sterna Naturœ,' and, as Professor Newton 

 puts it, he " availed himself of every publication he could, but 

 he perhaps found his richest booty in the labours of Latham, 

 neatly condensing his English descriptions into Latin diagnoses, 

 and bestowing on them binomial names." 



It is not a little surprising that Latham, being acquainted 

 with the Linnsean method, and ultimately intending to use 

 Latin binomial terms for the species of the ' Synopsis,' 

 should not have recognised the possibility of some other natu- 

 ralist anticipating his intention. It is in this way that Gmelin 

 obtained his position in Ornithology, and Latham falls far 

 behind him in the nomenclature of species of birds, though he 



