BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
Bull. Brit. Orn. Club. 
Notes on Australian Crows. 
Reprinted in Emu, Vol. XII., pp. 44-5, 1912. 
Ibis Jubilee Supplement, No. 2, December 1915. 
Report on the Birds collected by the British Ornithologists’ Union Expedition 
and the Wollaston Expedition in Dutch New Guinea. 
Includes many notes on Australian species which also occur in New Guinea, but 
owing to the writer’s ill-health very little of any value is found. The paper w T as 
reprinted unchanged in 4to size in the Transactions of the Zoological Society. 
Gray, George Robert. —Born 1808. Died 1872. Great British Ornithologist who was 
in charge of the Bird Collection at the British Museum. 
Newton has termed him an ornithological clerk, but had to admit that the initiating 
and carrying out of a work like the Genera of Birds indicated genius. As a matter of 
fact Gray was one of the extraordinary workers that have continually cropped up in 
connection with the British Museum. At that time, as at the present, an assistant is 
generally placed in charge of some subject whether he is interested in it or not. By 
strict application, without any imagination, such workers, having the authority of the 
British Museum behind them, achieve fame, though the actual merit of the work be 
small. In Gray’s case, however, his work was accompanied by an intense desire for 
accuracy, a trait entirely missing in his elder brother, Dr. J. E. Gray, the Keeper of 
the British Museum, and a much more famous worker whose energy was not tramelled 
by any qualms as to the accuracy of his results. G. R. Gray worked systematically 
and carefully, ever improving upon his work, and his writings are notable for their 
extreme care. It was the habit of Dr. Sharpe who succeeded him to disparage Gray’s 
results, but Sharpe was an ornithological genius of another kind. Sharpe’s natural 
enthusiasm for ornithology made him, with his position, the foremost ornithologist 
in the world, but his work was never as accurate as Gray’s. 
[Before Gray, I think Children was the incumbent, in place of S'wainson, who was a 
candidate for the place, but did not succeed in obtaining it. Children amounted to 
very little.—C.W.R.] 
G. R. Gray’s series of systematic works give better results in matters of detail, while 
Sharpe’s later Catalogue of Birds is a greater work in every way, except the lack of 
accuracy. Altogether he has set an indelible stamp on nomenclatural work for his 
period in ornithology. 
List of the Genera of Birds with an indication of the typical species of each genus. 
London, 8vo, April 1st, 1840. 
This was the first attempt to fix types of Avian genera for the whole of the class. 
The new names I quote are Hiaticula with H. annulata , Cladorhynchus , 
Guinetta, Microcygna, Tringa, Centrourus , Oyrnnorhina , Meliomis , Plectorha mphus, 
Craspedophora . 
This little work was so much appreciated that a Second Edition, revised, augmented, 
and accompanied by an Index was published in September 1841. 
From this I quote Cinclus, Cracticornis, Morinellus , Graucalus , Atagen , Herse, Leiojxi, 
Hylodes , Calornis , Hina, Falcinellus . 
In this second edition was incorporated the results of criticisms by Strickland ( q.v .} 
and others. 
Almost hnmediately, Gray found some ornithological works previously unattainable, 
e.g., Kaup 1829, and he at once published an Appendix to a List of the Genera of Birds in 
April 1842. 
This includes Geophaps , Ocyphaps , Threskiornis, Ardetta , Pcephila , Emblema and 
Oxycerca. 
Then thirteen years afterwards appeared a small work : 
Catalogue of the Genera and Subgenera Birds contained in the British Museum, 
London, 12mo, (before April 18th) 1855. 
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