Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 18.djvu/18

8 O 11 N I T H L O G Y mode of appreciating the value of the various groups of the Animal Kingdom. Yet his first attempt was a mere sketch. l Though he made a perceptible advance on the classification of Linna?us, at that time predominant, it is now easy to see in how many ways want of sufficient material being no doubt one of the chief Cuvier failed to produce a really natural arrangement. His principles, however, are those which must still guide taxonomers, notwithstanding that they have in so great a degree overthrown the entire scheme which he propounded. Confining our attention here, as of course it ought to be confined, to Ornithology, Cuvier s arrangement of the Class Aves is now seen to be not very much better than any which it superseded. But this view is gained by following the methods which Cuvier taught. In the work just mentioned few details arc given ; but even the more elaborate classification of Birds contained in his Lecom d Anatomic Comparee of 1805 is based wholly on external characters, such as had been used by nearly all his predecessors; and the Rcyne Animal of 1817, when he was in his fullest vigour, afforded not the least evidence that he had ever dissected a couple even of Birds 2 with the object of determining their relative position in his system, which then, as before, depended wholly on the configuration of bills, wings, and feet. But, though apparently without such a knowledge of the anatomy of Birds as would enable him to apply it to the formation of that natural system which he was fully aware had yet to be sought, he seems to have been an excellent judge of the characters afforded by the bill and limbs, and the use he made of them, coupled with the extraordinary reputation he acquired on other grounds, procured for his system the adhesion for many years of the majority of ornithologists, and its influence though waning is still strong. Regret must always be felt by them that his great genius was never applied in earnest to their branch of study, especially when we consider that had it been so the perversion of energy in regard to the classification . of Birds witnessed in England for nearly twenty years, and presently to be mentioned, would most likely have been prevented. 3 Hitherto mention has chiefly been made of works on General Ornithology, but it will be understood that these were largely aided by the enterprise of travellers, and as there were many of them who published their narratives in separate forms their contributions have to be considered. Of those travellers then the first to be here especially named Marsigli. is MARSiGLi, the fifth volume of whose Damioius Pannonico- Mysicm is devoted to the Birds he met with in the valley of the Danube, and appeared at the Hague in 1725, fallowed by a French translation in 1744. 4 Most of the many pupils whom Linnaeus sent to foreign countries sub mitted their discoveries to him, but KALM, HASSELQVIST, and OSBECK published separately their respective travels 1 It had no effect on LACPKDK, who in the following year added a Tableau Mtthodique containing a classification of Birds to his JHscours d Ourerture(Mem. del fnstitut, iii. pp. 454-468, 503-519). 2 So little regard did he pay to the Osteology of Birds that, according to De Blainville (Jour, de Physique, xcii. p. 187, note), the skeleton of a Fowl to which was attached the head of a Hornbill was for a long time, exhibited in the Museum of Comparative Anatomy at Paris ! Yet, in order to determine the difference of structure in their organs of voice, Cuvier, as he says in his Lemons (iv. p. 464), dissected more than one hundred and fifty species of Birds. Unfortunately for him, as will appear in the .sequel, it seems not to have occurred to him to use any of the results he obtained as the basis of a classification. 3 It is unnecessary to enumerate the various editions of the Riyiie Animal. Of the English translations, that edited by Griffiths and Pidgeon is the most complete. The ornithological portion of it contained in these volumes received many additions from JOHN" EDWARD GRAY, and appeared in 1829. 4 Though much later in date, the Iter per Poser/anam Rclavoniae of PILLER and MITTKRPACHER, published at Buda in 1783, may perhaps be here most conveniently mentioned. in North America, the Levant, and China. 5 The incessant journeys of PALLAS and his colleagues FALK, GEOEGI, S. G. GMELIN, GULDENSTADT, LEPECIIIX, and others in the exploration of the recently extended Russian empire sup plied not only much material to the Commentarii and Actn of the Academy of St Petersburg, but more that is to be found in their narratives, all of it being of the highest interest to students of Palicarctic or Nearctic Ornithology. Nearly the whole of their results, it may here be said, were summed up in the important Zooyrapliia Roxso-Asiatica of the first-named naturalist, which saw the light in 1811, the year of its author s death, but, owing to circumstances over which he had no control, was not generally accessible till twenty years later. Of still wider interest are the accounts of Cook s three famous voyages, though unhappily much of the information gained by the naturalists who accom panied him on one or more of them seems to be irretriev ably lost: the original observations of the elder FORSTER were not printed till 1844, and the valuable collection of zoological drawings made by the younger FORSTER still remains unpublished in the British Museum. The several accounts by JOHN WHITE, COLLINS, PHILLIPS, HTJNTER, and others of the colonization of New South Wales at the end of the last century ought not to be overlooked by any Australian ornithologist. The only information at this period on the Ornithology of South America is contained in the two works on Chili by MOLINA, published at Bologna in 1776 and 1782. The travels of LE VAILLANT in South Africa having been completed in 1785, his great Oiseaux d Afrique began to appear in Paris in 1790 ; but it is hard to speak properly of this work, for several of the species described in it are certainly not, and never were in his time, inhabitants of that country, though he sometimes gives a long account of the circumstances under which he observed them. 6 From travellers who employ themselves in collecting the animals of any distant country the zoologists who stay at home and study those of their own district, be it great or small, are really not so much divided as at first might appear. Both may well be named " Faunists," and of the latter there were not a few who having turned their atten tion more or less to Ornithology should here be mentioned, and first among them RZACZYNSKI, who in!721 brought out at Sandomirsk the Ifistoria naturaUs curiosa regni Polonix, to which an Auctuarium was posthumously published at Danzig in 1742. This also may be perhaps the most proper place to notice the Ilistoria Avium Hungarise of GROSSINGER, published at Posen in 1793. In 1734 J. L. FRISCH began the long series of works on the Birds of Germany with which the literature of Ornithology is enriched, by his Vorstellung dcr Vogel Teutschlands, which was only completed in 17G3, and, its coloured plates proving very attractive, was again issued at Berlin in 1817. The little fly-sheet of ZORN 7 for it is scarcely more on the Birds of the Hercynian Forest made its appearance at Pappenheim in 1745. In 1756 KRAMER published at Vienna a modest Elenc/ms of the plants and animals of Lower Austria, and J. D. PETERSEN produced at Altona in 1766 a Verzeichniss lalthischer Vogel; while in 1791 J. B. FISCHER S Versuck einer Naturgeschichte von Livland appeared at Kimigsberg, next year BESEKE brought out at Mitau his Beytray zur Naturgeschichte der Vogel Kurlands, 5 The results of FORSKAI/S travels in the Levant, published after his death by Isiebuhr, require mention, but the ornithology they contain is but scant. 6 It has been charitably suggested that, his collection and notes having suffered shipwreck, he was induced to supply the latter from his memory and the former by the nearest approach to his lost specimens that he could obtain. This explanation, poor as it is, fails, however, in regard to some species. 7 His earlier work under the title of Fetinothcoloyie can hardly be deemed scientific. Pallas The Forst< Le Vailhi Gross; ger. Friscl: Kram Besek.