xii 
HISTORICAL PREFACE. 
birds awakened in other men an interest tliey could not excite in a savage breast, and 
the sense of beauty was felt. Use and Beauty ! What may not spring from such divinely 
mated pair, when once they brood upon the human mind, like halcyons stilling troubled 
-waters, sinking the instincts of the animal in the restful, satisfying reflections of the 
man % 
The history of American Ornithology begins at the time when men first wrote upon 
American birds ; for men write nothing without some reason, and to reason at all is the 
beginning of science, even as to reason aright is its end. The date no one can assign, 
unless it be arbitrarily ; it was during the latter part of the sixteenth century, which, 
with the whole of the seventeenth, represents the formative or embryonic pt^riod during 
^yhich were gathering about the germ the crude materials out of which an ornithology of 
Xorth America was to be fashioned. As these accumulated and were assimilated, — as 
the writings multiplied and books bred books, " each after its kind," this special depart- 
ment of knowledge grew up, and its form changed with each new impress made upon its 
plastic organization. 
Viewing in proper perspective these three centuries and more which our subject has 
seen — passing in retrospect the steps of its development — we find that it offers several 
phases, representing as many " epochs " or major divisions, of very unequal duration, and 
of scientific significance inversely proportionate to their respective lengths. All that 
went before 1700 constitutes the first of these, which may be termed the Archaic epoch. 
The eighteenth century witnessed an extraordinary event, the consequence of which to 
systematic zoology cannot be over-estimated ; it occurred almost exactly iii tlie middle of 
the century, which is thus sharply divided into a Pre-Limi(Ean epoch, before the institu- 
tion of the binomial nomenclature, and a Post-Linn/Ean epoch, during which this technic 
of modern zoology was established, — eacli approximately of half a century's duration. 
In respect of our particular theme, the first quarter of the nineteenth century saw the 
father of American ornithology," whose spirit pointed the crescent in the sky of the 
IVilsoman epoch. During the second quarter, these horns were filled with the genius of 
the Auduhonian epoch. In the third, the plenteousness of a master mind has marked 
the. Bairdian epoch. 
Clearly as these six epochs may be recognized, there is of course no break between 
them ; they not only meet, but merge in one another. The sharpest line is that which 
runs across Linnseus at 1758 ; but even that is only visible in historical perspective, while 
the assignation of the dates 1700 and 1800 is rather a chronological convenience than, 
otherwise. Nothing absolutely marks the former ; and Wilson was unseen till 1808. 
The Archaic epoch stretches into the dim past with unshifting scene, even at the 
turning-point of the two centuries in which it lies. It is otherwise with the rest ; their 
sliapes have incessantly changed ; and several have been the periods in each of them dur- 
ing which their course of development has been accelerated or retarded, or modified in 
some special feature. These changes have invariably coincided with — have in fact been 
induced by — the appearance of some great work ; great, not necessarily in itself, but 
in its relation to the times, and thus in the consequences of the interaction between the 
times and the author who left the science other than he found it. The edifice as it 
stands to-day is the work of all, even of the humblest, builders ; but its plan is that of 
the architects who have modelled its main features, and the changes they have success- 
