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ORNITHOLOGY
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ORNITHOLOGY ,1 properly the methodical study and consequent knowledge of birds with all that relates to them; but the difficulty of assigning a limit to the commencement of such study and knowledge gives the word a very vague meaning, and practically procures its application to much that does not enter the domain of See also:science . This elastic application renders it impossible in the following See also:sketch of the See also:history of ornithology to draw any See also:sharp distinction between See also:works that are emphatically ornithological and those to which that See also:title can only be attached by See also:courtesy; for, since birds have always attracted far greater See also:attention than any other See also:group of animals with which in number or in importance they can be compared, there has grown up concerning them a literature of corresponding magnitude and of the widest range, extending from the recondite and laborious investigations of the morphologist and anatomist to the casual observations of the sportsman or the schoolboy . Though birds make a not unimportant See also:appearance in the earliest written records of the human See also:race, the painter's See also:brush has preserved their counterfeit presentment for a still longer See also:period . A fragmentary See also:fresco taken from a See also:tomb at Medum was desposited some years ago, though in a decaying See also:condition, in the Museum of See also:Egyptian Antiquities, See also:Cairo . This Egyptian picture was said to date from the See also:time of the third or See also:fourth See also:dynasty, some three thousand years before the See also:Christian era . In it were depicted with a marvellous fidelity, and thorough appreciation of See also:form and colouring (despite a certain conventional 1 Ornithologia, from the See also:Greek 6pv,.B-, crude form of Epvis, a See also:bird, and -Xoyta, allied to a6yor, commonly Englished a discourse . The earliest known use of the word Ornithology seems to be in the third edition of See also:Blount's Glossographia (167o), where it is noted as being " the titie of a See also:late See also:Book."treatment), the figures of six geese . Four of these figures can be unhesitatingly referred to two See also:species (Anser albifrons and A. ruficollis) well known at the See also:present See also:day . In later ages the representations of birds of one sort or another in Egyptian paintings and sculptures become countless, and the See also:bassi-rilievi of See also:Assyrian monuments, though mostly belonging of course to a subsequent period, are not without them . No figures of birds, however, seem yet to have been found on the incised stones, bones or ivories of the prehistoric races of See also:Europe . History of Ornithology to End of 28th See also:Century . See also:Aristotle was the first serious author on ornithology with whose writings we are acquainted, but even he had, as he tells us, predecessors; and, looking to that portion of his works on animals which has come down to us, one finds that, though more than 170 sorts of birds are mentioned,2 yet what is said of them amounts on the whole to very little, and this consists more of desultory observations in See also:illustration of his See also:general remarks (which are to a considerable extent physiological or bearing on the subject of See also:reproduction) than of an See also:attempt at a connected See also:account of birds .
One of his commentators, C
.
J
.
Sundevall—equally proficient in classical as in ornithological knowledge—was, in 1863, compelled to leave more than a See also:score of the birds of which Aristotle wrote unidentified
.
Next in See also:order of date, though at a See also:long See also:interval, comes See also:Pliny the See also:Elder, in whose Historia Naturalis Book X. is devoted to birds
.
Neither Aristotle nor Pliny attempted to classify the birds known to them beyond a very rough and for the most See also:part obvious grouping
.
Aristotle seems to recognize eight See also:principal See also:groups: (I) Gampsonyches, approximately See also:equivalent to the Accipitres of See also:Linnaeus; (2) Scolecophaga, containing most of what would now be called Oscines, excepting indeed the (3) Acanthophaga, composed of the See also:goldfinch, See also:siskin
and a few others; (4) Scnipophaga, the woodpeckers; (5)
Peristeroide, or pigeons; (6) Schizopoda, (7) Steganopoda, and
(8) Barea, nearly the same respectively as the Linnaean Grallae, Anseres and Gallinae
.
Pliny, relying wholly on characters taken from the feet, limits himself to three groups—without assigning names to them—those which have " hooked tallons, as Hawkes; or See also:round long clawes, as Hennes; or else they be broad, See also:flat, and whole-footed, as Geese and all the sort in manner of See also:water-foule "—to use the words of See also:Philemon See also:
The twenty-third of these books is De Avibus, and therein a See also:great number of birds' names make their earliest appearance, few of which are without See also:interest from a philologist's if not an ornithologist's point of view, but there is much difficulty in recognizing the species to which many of them belong
.
In 1485 was printed the first dated copy of the See also:volume known as the Ortus sanitatis, to the popularity of which many See also:editions testify .3 Though said by its author, Johann Wonnecke von See also:Caub (Latinized as Johannes de See also:Cuba), to have been composed from a study of the
2 This is Sundevall's estimate; Drs Aubert and Wimmer in their excellent edition of the 'Ieroptai rrspl Nee) (See also:Leipzig, 1868) limit the number to 126
.
3 Absurd as much that we find both in Albertus Magnus and the Ortus seems to modern eyes, if we go a step See also:lower in the See also:scale and consult the " Bestiaries or See also:treatises on animals which were See also:common from the 12th to the 14th century we shall meet with many more absurdities
.
See for instance that by Philippe de Thaun (See also:Philippus Taonensis), dedicated to See also:Adelaide or Alice, See also:queen of See also:
Hence his work, written in See also:French, contains a far greater amount of See also:original See also:matter; and his See also:personal observations made in many countries, from England to Egypt, enabled him to avoid most of the puerilities which disfigure other works of his own or of a preceding See also:age
.
Besides this, Belon disposed the birds known to him according to a definite See also:system, which (rude as we now know it to be) formed a See also:foundation on which several of his successors were content to build, and even to this day traces of its See also:influence may still be discerned in the arrangement followed by writers who have faintly appreciated the principles on which modern taxonomers See also:rest the outline of their schemes
.
Both his work and that of Gesner were illustrated with woodcuts, many of which display much spirit and regard to accuracy
.
Belon, as has just been said, had a knowledge of the See also:anatomy
t This was reprinted at See also:Cambridge in 1823 by Dr See also:George See also:Thackeray
.
2 The Seventh of See also:Wotton's De differentiis animalium Libri Decem, published at Paris in 1552. treats of birds; but his work is merely a compilation from Aristotle and Pliny, with references to other classical writers who have more or less incidentally mentioned birds and other animals
.
The author in his See also:preface states—" Veterum scriptorum sententias in unum quasi cumulum coaceruaui, de meo nihil addidi." Nevertheless he makes some attempt at a systematic arrangement of birds, which, according to his See also:lights, is far from despicable
.
' For instance, under the title of " Accipiter " we have to look, not only for the See also:sparrow-See also:hawk and gos-hawk, but for many other birds of the See also:family (as we now See also:call it) removed comparatively far from those species by modern ornithologists.of birds, and he seems to have been the first to See also:institute a See also:direct comparison of their See also:skeleton with that of See also:man; but in this respect he only anticipated by a few years the more precise researches of Volcher Coiter, a Frisian, who in 1573 and 1575 published at See also:Nuremberg two treatises, in one of which the internal structure of birds in general is very creditably described, while in the other the See also:osteology and myology of certain forms is given in considerable detail, and illustrated by carefully See also:drawn figures
.
The first is entitled Externarum et internarum principalium humani corporis Tabulae, &c. while the second, which is the most valuable, is merely appended to the Lectiones Gabrielis Fallopii de partibus similaribus humani corporis, &c., and thus, the See also:scope of each work being regarded as medical, the author's labours were wholly overlooked by the See also:mere natural-historians who followed, though Coiter introduced a table, " De differentiis Auium," furnishing a See also:
Nevertheless the book was eagerly sought, and several editions of it appeared.4
Mention must be made of a medical treatise by Caspar Schwenckfeld, published at See also:Liegnitz in 1603, under the title of Theriotropheum Silesiae, the fourth book of which consists of an " Aviarium Silesiae," and is the earliest of the works we now know by the name of See also:fauna
.
The author was well acquainted with the labours of his predecessors, as his list of over one See also:hundred of them testifies
.
Most of the birds he describes are characterized with accuracy sufficient to enable them to be identified, and his observations upon them have still some interest; but he was See also:innocent of any methodical system, and was not exempt from most of the professional fallacies of his time.'
Hitherto, from the nature of the See also:case, the works aforesaid treated of scarcely any but the birds belonging to the orbis veteribus notes; but the See also:geographical discoveries of the 16th century began to bear See also:fruit, and many animals of kinds unsuspected were, about one hundred years later, made known
.
Here there is only space to name Bontius, Clusius, Hernandez (or See also:Fernandez), Marcgrave, See also:Nieremberg and See also:Piso,' whose several works describing the natural products of both the Indies—whether the result of their own observation or compilation—together with those of Olina and See also:Worm, produced a marked effect, since they led up to what may be deemed the foundation of scientific ornithology.'
The Historia Naturalis of Johannes Johnstonus, said to be of Scottish descent but by birth a See also:Pole, ran through several editions during the 17th century, but is little more than an See also:epitome of the work of Aldrovandus
.
5 The Hierozoicon of See also:Bochart—a treatise on the animals named in See also:Holy See also:Writ—was published in 1619
.
5 For Lichtenstein's determination of the birds described by Maregrave and Piso see the Abhandlungen of the See also:Berlin See also:Academy for 1817 (pp
.
155 seq.)
.
' The earliest list of See also:British birds seems to be that in the Pinax Rerum Naturalium of See also:Christopher Merrett, published in 1667
.
In the following year appeared the Onomasticon Zooicon of See also:Walter Charleton, which contains some See also:information on ornithology
.
An enlarged edition of the latter, under the title of Exercitationes, &c., was published in 1677; but neither of these writers is of much authority
.
In 1684 See also:Sibbald in his See also:Scotia illustrata published the earliest Fauna of See also:Scotland
.
This foundation was laid by the See also:joint labours of See also:Francis See also:Willughby (1635–1672) and See also: Together they studied, together they travelled and together they collected . Willughby, the younger of the two, and at first the other's See also:pupil, seems to have gradually become the See also:master; but, he dying before the promise of his See also:life was fulfilled, his writings were given to the See also:world by his friend Ray, who, adding to them from his own stores, published the Ornithologia in Latin in 1676, and in English with many emendations in 1678 . In this work birds generally were grouped in two great divisions—" See also:land-See also:fowl " and "water-fowl"--the former being subdivided into those which have a crooked See also:beak and talons, and those which have a straighter See also:bill and claws, while the latter was separated into those which frequent See also:waters and watery places, and those that swim in the water—each subdivision being further broken up into many sections, to the whole of which a key was given . Thus it became possible for almost any diligent reader without much See also:chance of See also:error to refer to its proper See also:place nearly every bird he was likely to meet with . Ray's interest in ornithology continued, and in 1694 he completed a Synopsis Methodica Avium, which, through the See also:fault of the booksellers to whom it was entrusted, was not published till 1713, when See also:Derham gave it to the world.' Two years after Ray's death, Linnaeus, the great reformer of natural history, was See also:born, and in 1735 appeared the first edition of the celebrated Systema Naturae . Successive Linnaeus. editions of this work were produced under its author's supervision in 1740, 1748, 1758 and 1766 . Impressed by the belief that verbosity was the bane of science, he carried terseness to an extreme which frequently created obscurity, and this in no See also:branch of zoology more than in that which relates to birds . Still the practice introduced by him of assigning to each species a diagnosis by which it ought in theory to be distinguishable from any other known species, and of naming it by two words—the first being the generic and the second the specific See also:term, was so manifest an improvement upon anything which had previously obtained that the Linnaean method of differentiation and nomenclature established itself before long in spite of all opposition, and in principle became almost universally adopted . In his classification of birds Linnaeus for the most part followed Ray, and where he departed from his See also:model he seldom improved upon it . In 1745 P . Barrere brought out at See also:Perpignan a little book called Ornithologiae Specimen novum, and in 1752 Mohring published at See also:Aurich one still smaller, his Avium Genera . Both these works (now rare) are manifestly framed on the Linnaean method, so far as it had then reached; but in their arrangement of the various forms of birds they differed greatly from that which they designed to supplant, and they deservedly obtained little success .
Yet as systematists their authors were no worse than See also:Klein, whose Historiae Avium Prodromus, appearing at See also:Lubeck in 1750, and Stemmata Avium at Leipzig in 1759, met with considerable favour in some quarters
.
The See also:chief merit of the latter work lies in its See also:forty plates, whereon the heads and feet of many birds are indifferently figured
?
But, while the successive editions of Linnaeus's great work were revolutionizing natural history, and his example of precision in See also:language producing excellent effect on scientific writers, several other authors were advancing the study of ornithology in a very different way—a way that pleased the See also:eye even more than his labours were pleasing the mind
.
Between 1731 and
' To this was added a supplement by Petiver on the Birds of See also:Madras, taken from pictures and information sent him by one See also:Edward Buckley of Fort St George, being the first attempt to See also:catalogue the birds of any part of the British possessions in See also:India
.
2 After Klein's death his Prodromus, written in Latin, had the unwonted See also:fortune of two distinct See also:translations into See also:German, published in the same year 176o, the one at Leipzig and Lubeck by See also:Behn, the other at See also:Danzig by Reyger—each of whom added more or less to the original.1743 See also:Mark See also:Catesby brought out in London his Natural History of Carolina—two large folios containing highly coloured plates of the birds of that See also:colony, See also:Florida and the See also:Bahamas.' Eleazar Albin between 1738 and 1740 produced a Natural History of Birds in three volumes of more modest dimensions; but he seems to have been ignorant of ornithology, and his coloured plates are greatly inferior to Catesby's
.
Far better both as draughtsman and as authority was George See also:Edwards, who in 1743 began, under the same title as Albin, a See also:series of plates with letterpress, which was continued by the name of Gleanings in Natural History, and finished in 176o, when it had reached seven parts, forming four See also:quarto volumes, the figures of which are nearly always quoted with approval.'
The year which saw the works of Edwards completed was still further distinguished by the appearance in See also:France, where little had been done since Belon's days,' in six quarto volumes, See also:Brisson. of the Ornithologie of MathurinJacques Brisson—a work
of very great merit so far as it goes, for as a descriptive ornithologist the author stands even now unsurpassed; but it must be said that his knowledge, according to internal See also:evidence, was confined to books and to the external parts of birds' skins
.
It was enough for him to give a scrupulously exact description of such specimens as came. under his eye, distinguishing these by prefixing two asterisks to their name, using a single See also:asterisk where he had only seen a part of the bird, and leaving unmarked those that he described from other authors
.
His attempt at classification was certainly better than that of Linnaeus; and it is rather curious that the researches of the latest ornithologists point to results in some degree comparable with Brisson's systematic arrangement, for they refuse to keep the birds-of-See also:prey at the See also:head of the Class Aves, and they require the See also:establishment of a much larger number of " Orders " than for a long while was thought advisable
.
Of such " Orders " Brisson had twenty-six and he gave pigeons and poultry See also:precedence of the birds which are plunderers and scavengers
.
But greater value lies in his generic or sub-generic divisions, which, taken as a whole, are far more natural than those of Linnaeus, and consequently capable of better diagnosis
.
More than this, he seems to be the earliest ornithologist, perhaps the earliest zoologist, to conceive the See also:idea of each genus possessing what is now called a " type " —though such a term does not occur in his work; and, in like manner, without declaring it in so many words, he indicated unmistakably the existence of subgenera—all this being effected by the skilful use of names
.
Unfortunately he was too soon in the See also: Immediately on the completion of his Regne Animale in 1756, Brisson set about his Ornithologie, and it is only in the last two volumes of the latter that any reference is made to the tenth edition of the Systema Naturae, in which the See also:binomial method was introduced . •It is certain that the first four volumes were written if not printed before that method was promulgated, and when the fame of Linnaeus as a zoologist rested on little more than the very meagre See also:sixth edition of the Systema Naturae and the first edition of his Fauna Suecica . Brisson has been charged with jealousy of, if not hostility to, the great Swede, and it is true that in the preface to his Ornithologie he complains of the insufficiency of the Linnaean characters, but, when one considers how much better acquainted with birds the Frenchman was, such See also:criticism must be allowed to be pardonable if not wholly just . Brisson's work was in French, with a parallel translation (edited, it is said, by See also:Pallas) in Latin, which last was reprinted separately at See also:Leiden three years afterwards . Several birds from See also:Jamaica were figured in See also:Sloane's Voyage, &c . (1705-1725), and a good many See also:exotic species in the See also:Thesaurus, &c., of Seba (1734-1765), but from their faulty See also:execution these plates had little effect upon Ornithology . The works of Catesby and Edwards were afterwards reproduced at Nuremberg and See also:Amsterdam by Seligmann, with the letterpress in German, French and Dutch . Birds were treated of in a worthless See also:fashion by one D . B. in a Dictionnaire raisonne et universe' des animaux, published at Paris in 1759 . In 1767 there was issued at Paris a book entitled L'Histoire naturelle eclaircie dans une de ses parties principales, l'ornithologie . This was the work of Salerne, published after his death, and is often spoken of as being a mere translation of Ray's Synopsis, but a vast amount of fresh matter, and mostly of good quality, is added . The success of Edwards's very respectable work seems to have provoked competition, and in 1765, at the instigation of See also:Buffon, the younger d'Aubenton began the publication known as the Planches enlumineez d'histoire naturelle, which appearing in forty-two parts was not completed till 1780, when the plates'. it contained reached the number of 1oo8—all coloured, as its title intimates, and nearly all representing birds . This enormous work was subsidized by the French See also:government; and, though the figures are utterly devoid of See also:artistic merit, they display the species they are intended to depict with sufficient approach to fidelity to ensure recognition in most cases without fear of error, which in the See also:absence of any text is no small praise.2 But Buffon was not content with merely causing to be published this unparalleled set of plates . He seems to have regarded the work just named as a necessary precursor to his own labours in ornithology . His Histoire naturelle, generale et particuliere, was begun in 1749, and in 1770 he brought out, with the assistance of Guenau de Montbeillard,3 the first volume of his great Histoire naturelle des oiseaux . Buffon was the first man who formed any theory that may be called reasonable of the geographical See also:distribution of animals . He proclaimed the variability of species in opposition to the views of Linnaeus as to their fixity, and moreover supposed that this variability arose in part by degradation.' Taking his labours as a whole, there cannot be a doubt that he enormously enlarged the purview of naturalists, and, even if limited to birds, that, on the completion of his work upon them in 1783, ornithology stood in a very different position from that which it had before occupied . Great as were the services of Buffon to ornithology in one direction, those of a wholly different kind rendered by John Latham must not be overlooked . In 1781 he began a work the practical utility of which was immediately recognized . This was his General Synopsis of Birds, and, though formed generally on the model of Linnaeus, greatly diverged in some respects therefrom . The classification was modified, chiefly on the old lines of Willughby and Ray, and certainly for the better; but no scientific nomenclature was adopted, which, as the author subsequently found, was a See also:change for the worse . His scope was co-extensive with that of Brisson, but Latham did not possess the inborn See also:faculty of picking out the character wherein one species differs from another . His op- portunities of becoming acquainted with birds were hardly inferior to Brisson's, for during Latham's long lifetime there poured in upon him countless new discoveries from all parts of the world, but especially from the newly-explored shores of See also:Australia and the islands of the Pacific Ocean . The British Museum had been formed, and he had See also:access to everything it contained in addition to the abundant materials afforded him by the private museum of See also:Sir See also:Ashton See also:Lever.5 Latham entered, so far as the limits of his work would allow, into the 1 They were drawn and engraved by See also:Martinet, who himself began in 1787 a Histoire des oiseaux with small coloured plates which have some merit, but the text is worthless . 2 Between 1767 and 1776 there appeared at See also:Florence a Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, in five folio volumes, containing a number of See also:ill-drawn and ill-coloured figures from the collection of Giovanni Gerini, an ardent See also:collector who died in 1751, and therefore must be acquitted of any share in the work, which, though sometimes attributed to him, is that of certain learned men who did not happen to be ornithologists (cf . See also:Savi, Ornitologia Toscana, i . Introduzione, p. v.) . ' He retired on the completion of the sixth volume, and thereupon Buffon associated Bexon with himself . ' See St George See also:Mivart's address to the See also:Section of See also:Biology, See also:Rep . Brit . Association (See also:Sheffield See also:Meeting, 1879), p . 356 . In 1792 See also:Shaw began the Museum Leverianum in illustration of this collection, which was finally dispersed by See also:sale, and what is known to remain of it found its way to See also:Vienna . Of the specimens in the British Museum described by Latham it is to be feared that scarcely any exist . They were probably very imperfectly prepared.history of the birds he described, and this with evident zest whereby he differed from his French predecessor; but the number of cases in which he erred as to the determination of his species must be very great, and not unfrequently the same species is described more than once . His Synopsis was finished in 1785; two supplements were added in 1787 and 1802,8 and in 1790 he produced an abstract of the work under the title of See also:Index Ornithologicus, wherein he assigned names on the Linnaean method to all the species described . Not to recur again to his labours, it may be said here that between 1821 and 1828 he published at See also:Winchester, in eleven volumes, an enlarged edition of his original work, entitling it A General History of Birds; but his defects as a compiler, which had been manifest before, rather increased with age, and the consequences were not happy ? About the time that Buffon was bringing to an end his studies of birds, Mauduyt undertook to write the Ornithologie of the Encyclopedie methodique—a comparatively easy task, consideri |