X INTRODUCTION. 



specimens to Mr. George Edwards, who did them ample justice, in 

 his splendid " Natural History of Birds *," the most original and 

 valuable work of the kind in the English language. In the first volume, 

 he has figured and described with accuracy ten of Mr. Light's birds, 

 and in his third volume, which appeared in 1749, thirty -two of Mr. 

 Isham's are equally well illustrated -f. 



In that year also, Ellis published his account of the voyage of the 

 Dobbs and California, wherein he mentions some of the animals that 

 came under his notice in the winter of 1747, which he passed in 

 Hayes River £ ; and a narrative of the proceedings of the same voyage, 

 by Mr. Drage, Clerk of the California, is still more full on points 

 relating to Natural History. During the next twenty years, no 

 additional information was obtained of the Zoology of those parts ; 

 but Mr. William Wales having been sent to Hudson's Bay, in 1768, 

 to observe the transit of Venus, Mr. Graham, Governor of the Com- 

 pany's post at Severn River, embraced the opportunity afforded by 

 his return to England, of transmitting a collection of quadrupeds, 

 birds, and fishes to the Royal Society. These being described by 

 John Reinhold Forster, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1 772 J, 

 excited the attention of the scientific world ; and, by desire of the 

 Royal Society, directions were given by the Governor and Committee 

 of the Hudson's Bay Company that objects of Natural History should 

 be annually sent to England. Mr. Humphrey Martin, accord- 

 ingly, sent home several hundred specimens of animals and plants, 

 collected at Albany Fort, of which he was Governor ; and Mr. Hut- 

 chins, who succeeded him in that office, was still more industrious, 



* Edwards presented a copy of this work, coloured by his own hand, to the Royal Society ; and 

 another copy, which he sent to Linnaeus, returning' to England again when Sir James Smith acquired 

 the invaluable museum and library of that prince of naturalists, is now in the possession of the Lin- 

 nean Society. The Linnean specific names are added to it in manuscript. 



t In four instances Edwards devotes separate plates to the males and females, which reduces the 

 number of species of birds from Hudson's Bay, introduced into his work, to thirty-eight. 



I York Factory is situated on the alluvial point of land which separates this river from the more 

 important stream of Nelson's River, and is the place where the principal part of the waders and 

 water-fowl collected on Sir John Franklin's first Expedition were procured. 



§ The species of birds enumerated by Forster are fifty-seven, of which twenty-two had been pre- 

 viously made known by Edwards ; while sixteen, figured by the latter, do not enter Forster's list. 



