8 THE HISTORY OF ORNITHOLOGY 



any which had appeared since the latter's time. It bears the 

 author's personal impress, — and is still worth being referred 

 to as an evident sign of progress by revertion to a previous 

 classification with emendations to date. 



Alexander Wilson, 1808-14, published his North Ameri- 

 can Ornithology, that noted exposition of the Birds of North 

 America, just previous to the master work of Audubon. 

 Originally there were nine volumes, of which the last two 

 were completed by Ord. Wilson pursued the classification of 

 Pennant. His work ran through several editions. Later 

 several writers of note published their own revisions of it, es- 

 pecially Bonaparte, Jameson, Jardine, and the late Dr. 

 T. M. Brewer. If Ornithologists of to-day would emulate 

 more the example of this last careful, honest, honorable, and 

 painstaking Christian gentleman, there would be much more 

 knowledge of our Birds, and -much less of some writers and of 

 their too evident compilations put out under the guise of orig- 

 inal matter, abroad in our land. Both Wilson and Audubon 

 studied Birds not Books. As a result they are still quoted as 

 authority in most Ornithological matters. 



Dr. Geo. Shaw, 1809-12, was another writer who reverted 

 to a former author for his system of classification, and he cop- 

 ied extensively from Linnaeus ; on the other hand J. F. 

 Stephens, who compiled the latter part of Shaw's General 

 Zoology, really thought iu advance of his time by anticipating 

 many of the changes of later writers, — yet, on the whole, it 

 is doubtful if his views were credited to him with the same 

 generosity with which they were credited to those who followed 

 out many of his ideas. Messrs. J. Wolf and B. Meyer 

 (1810,) two German scientists, now revived the idea that Land 

 and Water Birds were the two great classes which separated, 

 most successfully, the species, and they further furnished a 

 somewhat new arrangement of 9 orders of the former and 2 

 of the latter. The Oscines, though the division was much 

 more limited as to the species comprised by it than at present, 

 were brought into prominence largely through their means. 



