183 



THE FIRST BIED LIST OF EBER & PEUCER (1549), 



A> T D ITS HELATION TO THE 



"Avium . . . Historia " of William Turner (1544). 



With Notes on the Editions known in this country, and their 



location. 



By Henry Scherren. 



The publication in 190o of Mr. A. H. Evans's English 

 version of William Turner's De Historia Avium, gave Prof. 

 Newton the opportunity of calling attention to the Appella- 

 tiones Volucrum quoted by Gesner under the names of Eber 

 and Peucer. In a notice of Mr. Evans's work Prof. Newton 

 offered a friendly challenge to German ornithologists. "We 

 have taken from them," he said, " an English author whom 

 they have long held in captivity. Why should they not 

 generously retaliate by setting free a prisoner — nay, two 

 prisoners — of their own nation, and give us a reprint of the 

 Appellationes Volucrum of Eber and Peucer ? " No German 

 ornithologists have responded ; and though I am not in a 

 position to offer a reprint, as is here hinted at, it may be 

 that a few notes on the subject may possess some interest ; 

 and I have to express my obligations to Prof. Newton for 

 valuable help and encouragement. 



Both Eber and Peucer are better known as theological 

 disputants in a stormy period than as ornithologists working 

 in the field, or pursuing their investigations by means of 

 skins or books. According to the Allgemeine Deutsche 

 Biographie, Paid Eber was born at Kitzingen in 1511, and 

 became a professor at Wittenberg, where he lectured on 

 philosophy, philology, mathematics, astronomy, history, and 

 especially natural science, in which he followed the Ancients. 

 He published at Wittenberg, in 1556, an explanation of the 

 Second Book of Pliny's Natural History ; but there is no 

 copy in the British Museum or the Bodleian Library. We 

 cannot, however, place implicit reliance on the article, for it 

 puts the publication of the first edition of the Vocabula at 

 Leipsic in 1556, while two earlier editions are known in this 



