ORNITHOLOGY. 



549 



History, and about the same time the industrious Pennant was ac- 

 s -"~y"~"' tively engaged in his important labours. His numerous 

 well-known works need not be here particularised. The 

 great collection published at Nuremberg by Schligmann in 

 1768, though amounting to nine volumes folio, including 

 an indifferent text, seems chiefly copied from preceding 

 works, such as those of Catesby and Edwards. In 1770 

 and following years, Noseman, in conjunction with Sepp 

 the engraver, published, in Dutch, his History of the Birds 

 of the Low Countries. The concluding fasciculi are by 

 Houttuyn. Baron Cuvier thinks the figures " remarkable 

 for their elegance." Mr Svvainson regards them as "poor 

 and unnatural." The year 1770 is farther marked as an 

 important epoch, by the appearance of the first two volumes 

 of the Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux, by Buffon. That 

 illustrious writer was the first to clothe the descriptive 

 portion of the science with colours as bright and varied as 

 those which beautify the fairy forms of which he treats, 

 but which had hitherto been viewed as it were only by 

 the half-closed eye of the technical describer. The Planches 

 Enluminees, afterwards published by Daubenton the youn- 

 ger, in illustration of Buffon's work, amount to above a 

 thousand plates of birds, being the greatest and most 

 important collection yet achieved in this department. In 

 1774 we have the Elementa Ornithologica, by Schceffer, 

 whose system rests entirely on the legs and feet of birds, 

 the primary sections being divided into nudipedes and 

 plumipedes, while the orders and genera are determined by 

 the number, position, and connection of the toes. He 

 never employs the bill when he can help it ; from which 

 we may infer the nature of the work, and its probable uti- 

 lity to the student. 



The Voyages aux Indes, &c. by Sonnerat (1775 and suc- 

 ceeding years), contains figures and descriptions of many 

 new exotic species. Scopoli's Introductio ad Historiam Na- 

 turalem, published at Prague in 1777, exhibits a systematic 

 distribution of birds, based on the form of the scales which 

 cover the tarsi. Thus the species which, like the gene- 

 rality of the accipitrine kinds, parrots, the gallinae, grallas, 

 and palmipedes, have those parts covered by small poly- 

 gonal scales, form the section called retepedes ; while the 

 others, which have the tarsi protected in front by semicir- 

 cular plates, bordered behind on each side by a longitu- 

 dinal furrow, constitute the sculipedes. The general result, 

 however, of this view is by no means successful. In 1776 

 Francesco Cetti published his Uccelli di Sardigna, a small 

 octavo volume, containing descriptions of only a portion of 

 the Sardinian birds, but valuable, from its notices of their 

 habits, and the description of various new species. 



Latham's General Synopsis commenced in 1781. How- 

 ever faulty in relation to the present state of the science, 

 it was a work of great merit for its time, and contains, un- 

 der not very appropriate names, by no means inaccurate 

 descriptions of many rare birds, some of which have since 

 been published, by more recent writers, as entirely new. 

 Under this head we may mention both the Index Orni- 

 tkologieus of the same author (1790), and his greatly en- 

 larged and more modern work, the General History of 

 Birds, ten volumes 4to, 1821-24, which combines the two 

 preceding (with their supplements) ; but is, we regret to 

 say, a mere combination of those rather obsolete mate- 

 rials, without critical discrimination, or any correction of 

 the ancient errors. There is great increase without much 

 progression. Nearly contemporaneous with Latham's first 

 work, we find contributions to Ornithology by Gilius, 

 Merrhem, and Jacquin. About 1783 Mauduit commenced 

 the Ornithology of the Encyclopedic Methodique, for which 

 Bonnaterre formed the system of classification which ac- 

 companies the volume of indifferent plates. Of the de- 

 scriptive portion an excellent modern continuation, if not 

 completion, has been published by M. Vieillot, in three vo- 



lumes 4to, 1823. Sparmann, a pupil of Linnaeus, and a History. 

 well-known traveller, published in 1786 the Museum Carl- S ~~~*~— 

 sonianum, in which several new species are represented 

 and described. In 1787 R. L. Desfontaines (in the Me- 

 moires de VAcademie des Sciences) contributed some no- 

 tices of birds which frequent the coasts of Barbary ; and, 

 in the same year, Martinet, who had acted under the 

 younger Daubenton as a superintendent of the Planches 

 Enluminees, took it into his head to publish, on his own 

 account, a collection of figures and descriptions of birds, 

 amounting to no less than nine volumes octavo. Their - 

 number was not more alarming than their nature. 



In 1789 and following years, J. F. Gmelin published 

 the thirteenth edition of the Systema Natura of Linnaeus. 

 " Son travail," says Baron Cuvier, " tout indigeste et de- 

 nue de critique et de connaissance des choses, est cepen- 

 dant necessaire, comme la seule table un peu complete 

 de ce qui a ete fait j usque vers 1790." About a volume 

 and a half is devoted to Ornithology. White's Journal of 

 a Voyage to New South Wales appeared in 1790, forming 

 an interesting addition to the natural history of a country 

 which still offers a vast field for zoological research ; and 

 soon afterwards Shaw announced his Zoology of New Hol- 

 land, which advanced no farther than a few fasciculi. We 

 have likewise in 1790 the Fauna Grbenlandica of Otho 

 Fabricius, a work of great merit for the time, and still 

 holding a high place in the estimation of the naturalist, 

 from the accuracy of its descriptions, although in some in- 

 stances the names are misapplied. In 1792 M. Beseke 

 published in German his materials for the Natural His- 

 tory of the Birds of Courland. The works by Lord, Hayes, 

 Lewin, and others, which appeared about this epoch, in il- 

 lustration of the birds of Great Britain, were so soon af- 

 terwards superseded by the admirable and unequalled wood 

 engravings by the inimitable Bewick, that it is scarcely ne- 

 cessary to bring their names to the reader's recollection. 

 We may close our imperfect sketch of the Ornithology of 

 the eighteenth century by the mention of Cuvier's first 

 work, the Tableau Elementaire d Histoire Naturelle (1798), 

 which contains the methodical distribution of birds, which 

 he afterwards completed in his Regne Animal. 



We may commence the present century with the title 

 of Daudin's work, the Traite Elementaire et complet a"Or- 

 nithologie, two vols. 4to, 1800. It is an unfinished compi- 

 lation, of no great merit, containing only the accipitrine 

 birds, and a portion of the Passeres. Although Le Vaillant 

 commenced his magnificent series of ornithological illus- 

 trations during the preceding season, and continued them 

 at intervals for several years, we shall here group together 

 the most important, for the convenience of the reader : 1st, 

 Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de TAfrique, six vols. 4to, 

 1799-1800. The plates amount to 300, but are in- 

 ferior to those of the other works of the same author. 

 2d, Histoire Naturelle d'une Partie d 'Oiseaux Nouveaux et 

 Pares de I'Amirique et des Indes, one volume 4to, 1801. 

 This volume illustrates the Bucerida or horn-bills, and the 

 Ampelida or fruit-eaters. 3d, Histoire Naturelle des Perro- 

 quets, 2 vols. 4to, 1801-5. Almost all the plates (139 

 in number) of this exquisite work are from drawings by 

 Barrabaud, an almost unrivalled artist in the ornithological 

 department. 4th, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de Paradis, 

 et des Rolliers, suivie de celle des Toucans et des Barbus, 2 

 vols, folio, 1806. " Equally splendid," says Mr Swainson, 

 " with the preceding. The size and extraordinary plu- 

 mage of the paradise birds require a scale fully equal to 

 the dimensions of this volume, which exceeds any other of 

 the author's in the beauty and splendour of its contents." 

 We believe that the two volumes, though generally regard- 

 ed as one series, were published separately, with distinct 

 titles. 5th, Histoire Naturelle des Promerops, et des Gue- 

 piers, 1 vol. folio, 1807. This rare and beautiful volume 



