him from making known to the world the rest of his researches in
regard to the other bones of the skeleton till he reached the head,
and in the memoir cited he treats of the sternum of only a portion
of his first “Order.” This is the more to be regretted by all ornithologists,
since he intended to conclude with what to them would
have been a very great boon—the showing in what way external
characters coincided with those presented by osteology. It was also
within the scope of his plan to have continued on a more extended
scale the researches on ossification begun by L'Herminier, and thus
M. Blanchard's investigations, if completed, would obviously have
taken extraordinarily high rank among the highest contributions
to ornithology. As it is, so much of them as we have are of considerable
importance; for, in this unfortunately unfinished memoir,
he describes in some detail the several differences which the sternum
in a great many different groups of his Tropidosternii presents, and
to some extent makes a methodical disposition of them accordingly.
Thus he separates the birds of prey into three great groups—(1)
the ordinary Diurnal forms, including the Falconidae and Vulturidae
of the systematists of his time, but distinguishing the American
Vultures from those of the Old World; (2) Gypogeranus, the
secretary-bird (q.v.) and (3) the owls (q.v.). Next he places the
parrots (q.v.), and then the vast assemblage of “Passereaux”—which
he declares to be all of one type, even genera like Pipra
(manakin, q.v.) and Pitta—and concludes with the somewhat
heterogeneous conglomeration of forms, beginning with Cypselus
(swift, q.v.), that so many systematists have been accustomed to
call Picariae, though to them as a group he assigns no name. A
continuation of the treatise was promised in a succeeding part of
the Annales, but a quarter of a century has passed without its
appearance.[1]
Important as are the characters afforded by the sternum, that bone even with the whole sternal apparatus should obviously not be Eyton. considered alone. To aid ornithologists in their studies in this respect, T. C. Eyton, who for many years had been forming a collection of birds' skeletons, began the publication of a series of plates representing them. The first part of this work, Osteologia Avium, appeared early in 1859, and a volume was completed in 1867. A Supplement was issued in 1869, and a Second Supplement, in three parts, between 1873 and 1875. The whole work contains a great number of figures of birds' skeletons and detached bones; but they are not so drawn as to be of much practical use, and the accompanying letterpress is too brief to be satisfactory.
That the eggs laid by birds should offer to some extent characters of utility to systematists is only to be expected, when it is considered that those from the same nest generally bear an extraordinary family likeness to one another, and also that in certain groups the essential peculiarities of the egg-shell are constantly and distinctively characteristic. Thus no one who has ever examined the egg of a duck or of a tinamou would ever be in danger of not referring another tinamou's egg or another duck's, that he might see, to its proper family, and so on with many others. But at the same time many of the shortcomings of oology in this respect must be set down to the defective information and observation of its votaries, among whom some have been very lax, not to say incautious, in not ascertaining on due evidence the parentage of their specimens, and the author next to be named is open to this charge. After several minor notices that appeared in journals at various times, Des Murs Des Murs. in 1860 brought out at Paris his ambitious Traité général d'oologie ornithologique au point de vue de la classification, which contains (pp. 529-538) a “Systema Oologicum” as the final result of his labours. In this scheme birds are arranged according to what the author considered to be their natural method and sequence; but the result exhibits some unions as ill-assorted as can well be met with in the whole range of tentative arrangements of the class, together with some very unjustifiable divorces. Its basis is the classification of Cuvier, the modifications of which by Des Murs will seldom commend themselves to systematists whose opinion is generally deemed worth having. Few, if any, of the faults of that classification are removed, and the improvements suggested, if not established by his successors, those especially of other countries than France, are ignored, or, as is the case with some of those of L'Herminier, are only cited to be set aside. Oologists have no reason to be thankful to Des Murs, notwithstanding his zeal in behalf of their study. It is perfectly true that in several or even in many instances he acknowledges and deplores the poverty of his information, but this does not excuse him for making assertions (and such assertions are not infrequent) based on evidence that is either wholly untrustworthy or needs further inquiry before it can be accepted (Ibis, 1860, pp. 331-335). This being the case, it would seem useless to take up further space by analysing the several proposed modifications of Cuvier's arrangement. The great merit of the work is that the author shows the necessity of taking oology into account when investigating the classification of birds; but it also proves that in so doing the paramount consideration lies in the thorough sifting of evidence as to the parentage of the eggs which are to serve as the building stones of the fabric to be erected. The attempt of Des Murs was praiseworthy, but in effect it has utterly failed, notwithstanding the encomiums passed upon it by friendly critics (Rev. de Zoologie, 1860, pp. 176-183, 313-325, 370-373).[2]
Until about this time systematists, almost without exception, may be said to have been wandering with no definite purpose. Results of Doctrine of Evolution. At least their purpose was indefinite compared with that which they now have before them. No doubt they all agreed in saying that they were prosecuting a search for what they called the true system of nature; but that was nearly the end of their agreement, for in what that true system consisted the opinions of scarcely any two would coincide, unless to own that it was some shadowy idea beyond the present power of mortals to reach or even comprehend. The Quinarians, who boldly asserted that they had fathomed the mystery of creation, had been shown to be no wiser than other men, if indeed they had not utterly befooled themselves; for their theory at best could give no other explanation of things than that they were because they were. The conception of such a process as has now come to be called by the name of evolution was certainly not novel; but except to two men the way in which that process was or could be possible had not been revealed.[3] Here there is no need to enter into details of the history of evolution; but there was possibly no branch of zoology in which so many of the best informed and consequently the most advanced of its workers sooner accepted the principles of evolution than ornithology, and of course the effect upon its study was very marked. New spirit was given to it. Ornithologists now felt they had something before them that was really worth investigating. Questions of affinity, and the details of geographical distribution, were endowed with a real interest, in comparison with which any interest that had hitherto been taken was a trifling pastime. Classification assumed a wholly different aspect. It had up to this time been little more than the shuffling of cards, the ingenious arrangement of counters in a pretty pattern. Henceforward it was to be the serious study of the workings of nature in producing the beings we see around us from beings more or less unlike them, that had existed in bygone ages and had been the parents of a varied and varying offspring—our fellow-creatures of to-day. Classification for the first time was something more than the expression of a fancy, not that it had not also its imaginative side. Men's minds began to figure to themselves the original type of some well-marked genus or family of birds. They could even discern dimly some generalized stock whence had descended whole groups that now differed strangely in habits and appearance—their discernment aided, may be, by some isolated form which yet retained undeniable traces of a primitive structure. More dimly still visions of what the first bird may have been like could be reasonably entertained; and, passing even to a higher antiquity, the reptilian parent whence all birds have sprung was brought within reach of man's consciousness. But, relieved as it may be by reflections of this kind—dreams some may perhaps still call them—the study of ornithology has unquestionably become harder and more serious; and a corresponding change in the style of investigation, followed in the works that remain to be considered, will be immediately perceptible.
That this was the case is undeniably shown by some remarks of Canon Tristram, who, in treating of the Alaudidae and Tristram. Saxicolinae of Algeria (whence he had recently brought a large collection of specimens of his own making), stated (Ibis, 1859, pp. 429-433) that he could “not help feeling convinced of the truth of the views set forth by Messrs Darwin and Wallace,” adding that it was “hardly possible, I should think, to illustrate this theory better than by the larks and chats of North Africa.” It is unnecessary to continue the
- ↑ M. Blanchard's animadversions on the employment of external characters, and on trusting to observations on the habits of birds, called forth a rejoinder from A. R. Wallace (Ibis, 1864, pp. 36-41), who successfully showed that they are not altogether to be despised.
- ↑ In this historical sketch of the progress of ornithology it has not been thought necessary to mention other oological works, since they have not a taxonomic bearing, and the chief of them have been already named (see Birds).
- ↑ Neither Lamarck nor Robert Chambers (the now acknowledged author of Vestiges of Creation), though thorough evolutionists, rationally indicated any means whereby, to use the old phrase, “the transmutation of species” could be effected.
