xu HISTORICAL PBEFACE. 



birds awakened in other men an interest they could not excite i^ a savage breast, and 

 the sense of beauty was felt. Use and Beauty ! What may not spring from such divinely 

 mated pair, when once they brood upon the human mind, like halcyons stilling troubled 

 waters, sinking the instincts of the animal in the restful, satisfying reflections of the 

 man ? 



The history of American Ornithology begins at the time when men first wrote upon 

 American birds ; for men write nothing without some reason, and to reason at aU is the 

 beginning of science, even as to reason aright is its end. The date no one can assign, 

 unless it be arbitrarily ; it was during the latter part of the sixteenth century, which, 

 with the whole of the seventeenth, represents the formative or embryonic period during 

 which were gathering about the germ the crude materials out of which an ornithology of 

 North America was to be fashioned. As these accumulated and were assimilated, — as 

 the writings multiplied and books bred books, " each after its kind," this special depart- 

 ment of knowledge grew up, and its form changed with each new impress made upon its 

 plastic organization. 



Viewing in proper perspective these three centuries and more which our subject has 

 seen — passing in retrospect the steps of its development — we find that it offers several 

 phases, representing as many " epochs " or major divisions, of very unequal duration, and 

 of scientific significance inversely proportionate to their respective lengths. AU that 

 went before 1700 constitutes the first of these, which may be termed the Arch/tic epoch. 

 The eighteenth century witnessed an extraordinary event, the consequence of which to 

 systematic zoology cannot be over-estimated' ; it occurred almost exactly in the middle of 

 the century, which is thus sharply divided into a Pre-Linmean epoch, before the institu- 

 tion of the binomial nomenclature, and a Post-Linnaan epoch, during which this technic 

 of modem zoology was established, — each approximately of half a century's duration. 

 In respect of our particular theme, the first quarter of the nineteenth century saw the 

 " father of American ornithology," whose spirit pointed the crescent in the sky of the 

 WUsonian epoch. During the second quarter, these horns were filled with the genius of 

 the Auduhonian epoch. In the third, the plenteousness of a master mind has marked 

 the Bairdian epoch. 



Clearly as these six epochs may be recognized, there is of course no break between 

 them ; they not only meet, but merge in one another. The sharpest line is that which 

 runs across Linnaeus at 1758 : but even that is only visible in historical perspective, while 

 the assignation of the dates 1700 and 1800 is rather a chronological convenience than 

 otherwise. Nothing absolutely marks the former ; and Wilson was unseen tiU 1808. 



The Archaic epoch stretches into the dim past with unshifting scene, even at the 

 turning-point of the two centuries in which it lies. It is otherwise with the rest ; their 

 shapes have incessantly changed ; and several have been the periods in each of them dur- 

 ing which their course of development has been accelerated or retarded, or modified in 

 some special feature. These changes have invariably coincided with — have in fact been 

 induced by — the appearance of some great work ; great, not necessarily in itself, but 

 in its relation to the times, and thus in the consequences of the interaction between the 

 times and the author who left the science other than he found it. The edifice as it 

 stands to-day is the work of all, even of the humblest, builders ; but its plan is that of 

 the architects who have modelled its main features, and the changes they have success- 



