THE HISTORY OF ORNITHOLOGY 11 



munes," and described so definitely the " forms and positions 

 of this artery " as to fully establish it as an evident factor in 

 our present classification. William Swainson, 1827-31. 

 Mr. Swainson probably did more than any other writer in 

 his time to popularize science. His name is connected with 

 many volumes upon many subjects. He was a careful and 

 accurate naturalist. He prepared the greater part of the sec- 

 ond volume of Arctic Zoology, that on Birds, for the careful 

 execution of which he is specially known among Ornitholo- 

 gists, in connection with Dr. John Richardson, who pre- 

 pared volumes one and three of the same work. 



The name of John James Audubon, 1827-31, marks a 

 new Ornithological epoch. His efforts to give to the world a 

 thoroughly reliable account of the Birds of North America 

 will ever remain unique. These efforts produced " 5 octavo 

 volumes of text and an elephant folio atlas of 4 volumes of 

 435 plates : " The ordinary " Audubon " of to-day is not 

 this, however, but a smaller edition of 7 volumes which has 

 sprung from it. In a small single volume, his Synopsis, he 

 sets out his views regarding the general classification of the 

 Birds of which he speaks, although, as he there states, " the 

 location of the groups is not such as, in all respects, to sat- 

 isfy me." He studied deeply the anatomy of the digestive 

 okgans of Birds, and introduced it as a new feature into his 

 various groups. 



Jan Van der Hoeven, 1828-33, [revised edition, 1849- 

 50,] was a voluminous writer, and is still a favorite with many 

 for his apparent definiteness of general classification ; but it 

 is mainly a compilation, not always of the latest facts that 

 might have been obtained at the time, from previous writers 

 with very little original neiv matter • yet this was a better 

 text book of general Zoology than it was at the time, or even 

 now is, credited with being. 



Thomas Nuttall, 1832-34. This searcher apparently after 

 the same object as incited both Audubon and Wilson raised 

 himself to eminence by popularizing his subject and reducing 



