548 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



History, cline not seldom to sneer at his unprecedented and even 



^~— " Y~^now unequalled labours, should not perceive that it is to 



his system they are indebted for almost all that is of any 



value in their own. But on this subject we shall not here 



enlarge. 



It has been sometimes remarked, that the characters 

 given by Linnaeus to his orders are totally inapplicable to 

 many of the species which each contains. Thus the vul- 

 tures, it is said, which belong to the first order, have no 

 projecting processes on the upper mandible ; the parrots, 

 which are referred to the second, have the bill hooked, not 

 cultriform, and bear no resemblance to the other species ; 

 among the Anseres, which are characterised as having the 

 bill smooth, covered with epidermis, and enlarged at the 

 tip, are the gannets, with a bare and pointed bill, and the 

 divers, terns, and gulls, with bills not at all answering to 

 the description given ; among the Grallae, with a cylindri- 

 cal bill, are the ostrich, with a short depressed one, the 

 canchroma, with one resembling a boat, the spoon-bill, the 

 heron, the flamingo, and others, the bills of which differ 

 from each other as much as from those of the snipes and 

 curlews ; the character given to the bill of the Gallinae 

 agrees with that of many Passeres; and the wag-tail, the 

 swallow, the tit-mouse, the red-breast, and numerous other 

 small birds, have bills very different from those of the gold- 

 finch, bunting, bullfinch, and cross-bill, which, neverthe- 

 less, are all defined under the same order, and by a similar 

 phrase. 1 We believe the truth to be, that the more natu- 

 ral an order is, the greater the difficulty becomes of ex- 

 pressing its characters in a single line, in accordance with 

 the briefness of the Linnasan method, — because none of 

 ' these characters, taken in disconnection, remain unmodi- 

 fied throughout the extended series of beings which they 

 are intended to define. There is always a blending or 

 transition towards other groups, so that the character ex- 

 pressed in words must be regarded as applying in force 

 rather to certain species which exemplify the whole, and 

 towards which the others tend, than to the entire as- 

 semblage. Now the Linnasan genera are often natural 

 as family groups, though their constituent portions may 

 not accord with the definition ; and as they become ex- 

 tended, or rather filled up, by the discovery of new 

 species, the difficulty increases. Many of the modi- 

 fying species, or connecting links, were totally unknown 

 in the time of the great Swedish observer, who seized 

 chiefly upon the more prominent and tangible points ; 

 and the necessity of forming new subdivisions in no way 

 invalidates his claims upon the gratitude of all lovers of 

 the lucidus ordo. At the same time his early disciples 

 erred (though less grossly than many of the later rene- 

 gades) in viewing all living things as merely destined to 

 clothe with flesh and blood the gigantic frame-work which 

 he had erected, — as if his exposition of the system of 

 nature were in fact itself that system, — as if the highest 

 attainments of any one, however gifted, in either art or 

 science, were ever more than the passionate expression of 

 some dim vision of truth, perceived through the influence 

 of the love of knowledge. With all the lights of modern 

 method, and the vaunted improvements in classification, 

 see we not still " through a glass darkly ?" Have not 

 some of those who talk slightingly of the Swedish sage 

 never contrived to see through the glass at all ? 



During the thirty years which elapsed between the first 

 and twelfth editions of the Systema Natures, several im- 

 portant additions were made to Ornithology from other 

 quarters. Edwards, especially, in his Natural History of 

 Birds, and other rare undescribed Animals, and in his 

 Gleanings in Natural History, amounting in all to seven 



volumes 4to (1743 and after years), made known in a History, 

 rough but recognisable style, many new and interesting ""-" ~"V~— 

 species. " C'est le recueil," says Cuvier, " le plus riche 

 pour les oiseaux apres les planches enluminees de BufFon." 

 During the same period a letter was published at Pappen- 

 heim, on the birds of the Black Forest, by J. H. Zorn, 

 Epistola de Avibus Germanim, preeserlim Sylva Hercynim, 

 which contains many excellent observations ; and the cor- 

 respondence was afterwards extended by Briickmann in his 

 Aves in Germania obvia Epislolar. Ilinerar. cent. ii. epist. 

 18, and Aves Sylvce Hercyniw, ibid, epist. 17. In Ander- 

 son's Natural History of Iceland and Greenland (1750), we 

 have among the earliest authentic notices of the Zoology 

 of these northern regions. Klein and Maering each pub- 

 lished systematic works, but based on very artificial prin- 

 ciples, at this epoch. In Brown's Civil and Natural His- 

 tory of Jamaica, there are several ornithological contribu- 

 tions ; and we may here name another excellent English 

 work, Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall, which appear- 

 ed at Oxford in 1758. In 1760 Brisson published his great 

 systematic Ornithologie, in six volumes 4to, still of value 

 for the minute though laborious exactness of the descrip- 

 tions. His method is founded entirely on the form of the 

 bill and feet, the number of the toes, and the manner in 

 which these are united, with or without membrane, to 

 each other. The Omithologia Borealis of Brunnich ap- 

 peared at Copenhagen in 1764. 



The Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, printed at Florence 

 in 1767, is the most extensive of all the Italian works on 

 Ornithology, after that of Aldrovandi. It is frequently 

 named by Temminck and other modern writers, most of 

 whom, however, from their vague references, may be safe- 

 ly inferred to quote at second hand. It consists of a large 

 collection of plates both of indigenous and exotic birds, 

 executed with sufficient exactness, considering the slight 

 practice which obtained in those days in the representa- 

 tion of natural objects. The position of most of the figures, 

 as Signor Savi remarks, is forced and unnatural ; and we 

 may see at once that the artist was guided more by his 

 own fancies than the accustomed observance of living na- 

 ture. " Illuminatio non semper optima, nee optimus sem- 

 per avium situs," are the observations made by Boehmer. 2 

 The plates were engraved from drawings in the collection 

 of a Florentine patrician, the Marchese Giovanni Gerini, 

 a passionate lover of Ornithology, who passed much of his 

 time in collecting, and causing to be described and figured, 

 whatever birds he could procure from every clime and coun- 

 try. After his death some learned men, unfortunately not 

 much skilled in Ornithology, supposing either that general 

 erudition might suffice for science, or that the superficial 

 study of a few books might compensate the want of laborious 

 observations carried on from'year to year, undertook to pub- 

 lish Gerini's uncompleted work, to fill up the voids which 

 he had left, and even to alter what he had already done. 

 They thus compiled a superficial text, in which they con- 

 fused the classification, mistook the species, omitted seve- 

 ral of the most interesting, and neglected the localities, — so 

 that a work which, in the hands of an able editor, might 

 have added a new glory to the already illustrious literature 

 of Italy, became nothing more than a disorderly collection 

 of figures. It is, however, of some value, chiefly as con- 

 taining representations of species not previously known, 

 such as Falco cenchris, Fringilla cisalpina, Sylvia provinci- 

 alis, melanocephala, and melanopogon, Sterna leucoptera, &c. 



From the year 1767 onwards, Pallas, in his Spicilegia 

 Zoologica, the narrative of his various Travels, and the Acta 

 of the Royal Academy of St Petersburg, contributed to Or- 

 nithology, as to most other branches of zoological science ; 



1 Macgillivray's Lives of Zoologists, vol. i. p. 279. 



2 Bibliothcca Scriplorum Hisioritx Naturalis, &c. torn. iii. p. 502. 



