1<>4 President's Address. 



native of the island of Bourbon. The picture was taken from 

 a living- specimen, brought into Holland, soon after the 

 discovery of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of 

 Good Hope, by the Portuguese. It was once the j)roperty 

 of Sir Hans Sloane, and afterwards of the celebrated 

 ornithologist George Edwards, who presented it to the 

 British Museum.'" This statement, made in 1808, was 

 doubtless on the authority of Shaw, who was assistant-keeper 

 of the Zoological Department at the time. 



The synopsis of the collections ran through numerous 

 editions, and I have, in my • History,' endeavoured to trace 

 the changes which took place in the arrangement and 

 development of the Bird Collections. In 1815, the birds held 

 a more prominent position in the guide book, and occupied 

 twenty cases, and after Dr. John Edward Gray's appointment 

 in 1824, considerable improvement seems to have been made, 

 and a special section of the Museum appropriated to the 

 British collections, which lias continued unto the j3resent 

 day. 



From the * Synopsis ' of 1815 we also learn that, in 1769, 

 ,w the Trustees being informed that a large collection of 

 stuffed birds, in uncommon preservation, had been brought 

 over from Holland by a person of the name of Greenwood, 

 who, having for a time exhibited them to the public, became 

 desirous to dispose of them at a reasonable price, they readily 

 availed themselves of the opportunity and purchased the whole 

 for the sum of £460. Many additions were made by jmrchases 

 and donations ; and the aggregate soon formed, not indeed a 

 complete, but as extensive and curious a collection as any 

 perhaps at that time extant." 



Thus we see that the Sloane Collection formed the founda- 

 tion of the Ornithological collection of the British Museum, 

 and that the increase of the latter was at first by small degrees. 

 There may have been certain additions from Cook's Voyages 

 (there certainly were numbers in the Ethnographical Depart- 

 ment) but of these nothing remains. The collection purchased 

 of Greenwood must have been a substantial accmisition, while 

 in 1816 the Montagu collection of British Birds was added, 

 and a catalogue given of it by Leach in the same year. 



