xvi * ‘HISTORICAL PREFACE 
vately printed in Paris in 1782, though the authorized publication was not till 1787. 
It contains a list of 77 birds of Virginia, fortified with references to Catesby, Linnzus, 
and Brisson, as the author’s authorities. There were many editions, one dating 1853. 
The long publication in France of one of the monumental works on general orni- 
thology coincides very nearly with this period. I refer of course to Buffon and his 
collaborators. The “Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux,” by Buffon and Montbeillard, dates 
in its original edition 1770-1783, being in nine quarto volumes with 264 plain plates. 
It forms a part of the grand set of volumes dating 1749-1804 in their original editions. 
With the nine bird-volumes are associated the magnificent series of colored plates known 
as the “Planches Enluminées,” published in 42 fascicles from 1765 to 1781. The 
plates are 1008 in number, of which 973 represent birds. 
(1785-1791.) 
The Pennantian Period. — A great landmark —one of the most conspicuous of the 
last century — was set up with the appearance in 1785 of the second volume of Thomas 
Pennant’s “Arctic Zoology.” The whole work, in three quarto volumes with many 
plates, 1784-1787, was ‘designed as a sketch of the Zodlogy of North America.” 
In this year, also, John Latham completed the third volume (or sixth part) of his 
“General Synopsis of Birds.” These two great works have much in common, in so far 
as a more restricted treatise can be compared with a more comprehensive one; and in 
the history of our subject the names of Latham and Pennant are linked as closely as 
those of Catesby and Edwards. The parallel may be drawn still further; for neither 
Pennant nor Latham (up to the date in mention) used binomial names ; their species 
had consequently no standing; but they furnished’ to Gmelin in 1788 the same bases 
of formally-named species of the thirteenth edition of the “Systema Nature,” that 
Catesby and Edwards had afforded Linnzus in 1758 and 1766. Pennant treated up- 
wards of 500 nominal species of North American Birds. The events at large of this brief 
but important period were the progress of Latham’s Supplement to his Synopsis, the first 
volume of which ‘appeared in 1787, though the second was not completed till 1801; 
the appearance in 1790 of Latham’s “Index Ornithologicus,” in which his birds receive 
Latin names in due form ; and the publication in 1788 of the thirteenth edition of the 
“Systema Nature,” as just said. 
We are so accustomed to see “Linn.” and “Gm.” after the names of our longest- 
known birds that we almost unconsciously acquire the notion that Linnzeus and. Gmelin 
were great discoverers or describers of birds in those days. But the men who made 
North American ornithology what it was during the last century were Catesby, 
Edwards, Forster, Pennant, Latham, and Bartram. For “the illustrious Swede” was in 
this case little more than a methodical cataloguer, or systematic indexer ; while his editor, 
Gmelin, was merely an industrious, indiscriminate compiler and transcriber. Neither of 
these men discovered anything to speak of in this connection. 
(1791-1800.) 
The Bartramian Period. — William Bartram’s figure in the events we are sketching 
is a notable one, — rather more on account of his bearing upon Wilson’s subsequent. ca- 
reer than of his own actual achievements. Wilson is often called the “father of Ameri- 
