For an account of early modern writers on birds (and their relation to Aristotle) see StresemannE., Die Entwicklung der Ornithologie von Aristoteles bis zur Gegenwart (Berlin, 1951); English translation (which I have used), Ornithology from Aristotle to the present (see ref. 77). Earlier, brief accounts are given by Meyer, Aristoteles Thierkunde (ref. 71), 12ff; NewtonA., A dictionary of birds (London, 1893–96), introduction, pp. 5–7.
2.
NH X 1–28.
3.
Translations from Pliny are based on RackhamH., (ed.), Pliny, Natural history, vol. iii (libri viii-xi) (Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge, Mass., 1940).
4.
RackhamSo, Pliny, vol. iii.
5.
I have modified Rackham's translation of “quod in grandiore alitum genere grues tantum”.
6.
In Book I he names Aristotle among the sources for Book X.
7.
Cf. 542b4–17, 593b9–11, 616a14–34. (On references to Aristotle's works, see ref. 1.).
8.
PA 694a10–19, HA 592a29 and b15f.
9.
PA 693a6–7, 694b2–5, 15–16; HA 504a6–7, 593a26–28.
10.
Cited by Pellegrin, Aristotle's classification (ref. 2), 118. (The translation is from Peck, ed. of HA I-III (see ref. 1).).
11.
644a20 pteron (wing, or feather); 644a22 pteron, lepis (scale); 644b7–8 “the shapes of the parts and of the whole body”; 644b11 moria (parts), 12f ostoun (bone), akanthan (fishbone), sωmatikois pathesin (bodily qualities).
12.
PA 653b22f, 693b13; cf. Gotthelf, “Notes towards a study of substance” (ref. 193).
13.
On the identification of sanqualis and inmusulus, see CapponiF., Ornithologia latina (Genova, 1979), 449 and 306–9.
14.
Festus, De verborum significatu, p. 197M. See also Cicero, De divinationeI120; Epistulae ad familiares VI 6.7; De natura deorum II 160; Horace, Carmina III 27.11; Servius on Aeneid I 394; Bouché-LeclercqA., Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité (Paris, 1879–82), iv, 199f.
15.
For a characterization of these works, and Wotton's in particular, see RavenC. E., English naturalists from Neckam to Ray (Cambridge, 1947), 39–42.
16.
“cum alios nonnullos, tum vel maxime Aristotelem proponendum putavi, quem … imitarer” (“I thought I should propose to myself for imitation both some other writers, and most of all Aristotle”: Preface, leaf a3 recto).
17.
“De avium generibus quae fissos pedes habent: & primo de gallinaceo genere.”.
18.
“De avibus carnivoris, & primo de aquilarum generibus.”.
19.
“In avium genere quibus ungues adunci, prope dixerim omnes, carnivorae sunt.”.
20.
“De accipitrum generibus.”.
21.
“De nocturnis avibus, quae uncungues sunt.”.
22.
“Sunt etiam in genere non adunco quae carne vescuntur, ut hirundo.”.
23.
“Corvi non tantum carne aluntur, sed & alio pabulo.”.
24.
“De pico martio, psittace, pica, & quibusdam id genus aliis.”.
25.
“Sunt & parvae aves uncorum unguium, ut picus martius.”.
26.
“De aliis quibusdam avibus, quae victus causa arbores & ligna feriunt contunduntque.”.
27.
“Non alio magis quam venatu vermiculorum circa arbores lignave nascentium (knipas, ē sknipas Graeci vocant) pipra vivit, tum maior tum minor: Utranque dryokolaptēn, id est picum martium appellant.”.
28.
“Akanthophaga, id est quae spinis victitant.”.
29.
“De iis aviculis, quae maxima ex parte vermiculis aliisque id genus animalculis vivunt, skωlēkophaga dicuntur.”.
30.
“De avibus, quae circa aquam victitant: Primo de volacibus.”.
31.
“Vermiculis etiam vivit anthus: Nec iis solum, sed herbis quoque pascitur. Colit hie paludes & amnes, & fidipes est ….”.
32.
HA VIII 3, 592b25, IX 609M4–19, and 615a26f. (On its identity, see Appendix to Part I.).
33.
“De aquaticis gravioribus, quae omnes palmipedes sunt: De anserum generibus, de olore & onocrotalo.”.
34.
“De anatino genere, & aliis quae … similes sunt” and “De corvis aquatilibus”.
35.
“De avibus partim peregrinis, partim monstrosis.”.
36.
Cf. PA 697bl4f (see Part I, p. 114. The Bat Wotton deals with among the mammals, f. 71.).
37.
“Raptorial birds … vultures … eagles, then birds used in falconry and other birds of prey, then we shall end with the nocturnal birds” (p. 82: Preface to Book 2).
38.
“Birds … which live in fresh and salt water, swimming on the water.”.
39.
“Will contain all those which have webbed feet.”.
40.
“Haunt the waters of seas, rivers and ponds” (p. 150).
41.
“Birds … whose haunts are the banks of lakes, marshes, ponds and rivers, which do not have webbed feet and do not swim on the water.”.
42.
“Long legs, thighs, beak and neck. And because they have to haunt bogs and marshes, [nature] has extended their toes to a great length” (p. 186).
43.
See, e.g., HA VIII 3, 593b1; PA 694b13.
44.
See Part I, p. 122.
45.
“Birds which fly little and are heavy and fat, which is the reason why nature has wished that they should have to feed and live in open country and copsewood: We find a very great number of them which … nest only on the ground …. Terrestrial birds wallow in dust … whence they have been called … Dust-bathing birds” (p. 230).
46.
‘Poor-flying’, ‘bulky’, ‘heavy’. See, e.g., PA 694a6f, 10f.
47.
See Part I, p. 129.
48.
“Those which live indifferently in all habitats, flying sometimes on the branches of full-grown trees, sometimes among brushwood, as also in meadows, pastures, ploughed lands, marshy land, and along river-banks, and which feed variously on all sorts of food.”.
49.
See Part I, p. 130.
50.
“The smallest birds, which live in hedges, thickets and small woods; among these let us make three distinctions: One group feeds on vermine only, another on seeds only, both of thorns and of other wild plants; but the third feeds indifferently on vermine and on seeds together.”.
51.
“Flies, ants, caterpillars, beetles, and other such small animals.”.
52.
See Part I, pp. 135–6.
53.
Abridged from Icones avium, p. 127.
54.
“De rapacibus carnivoris nocturnis.”.
55.
“De caeteris avibus … volacibus, quae rapaces non sunt: & primum de maioribus, deinde de reliquis mediae magnitudinis ….”.
56.
“De generis eiusdem avibus minoribus … frugivoris primum, dein vermivoris.”.
57.
“De terrestribus seu humivolis avibus, quae pulveratrices sunt: & primum de mansuetis, quibus etiam columbas adnumeravi ex sententia Aristotelis, etsi Gybertus Longolius columbas inter aves pulveratrices recte numerari non putat.”.
58.
“De pulveratricibus feris … maioribus primum, quae fere gallinacei generis sunt: Deinde minoribus.”.
59.
“De avibus aquaticis illis, quae non in aquis, sed circa aquas degere solent …. Sunt autem fidipedes omnes … & pleraeque cruribus longiusculis …”.
60.
“Aves rapaces, quae omnes rostris ac unguibus aduncis, & carnivorae sunt, & interdiu volant.”.
61.
“Generali nomine pulveratrices Latini, Aristoteles konistikas vocant” (leaf B6).
62.
See Part I, p. 129.
63.
See Part I, pp. 127 and 132.
64.
“Primo igitur omne id genus avium, quod aduncis est unguibus, carnibusque ut plurimum … victitat, ex nostro hoc aviario propositurus sum. Carnivora autem isthaec, cum quaedam diurna, quaedam nocturna habeantur; ego primum de diurnis … tractabo.”.
65.
“Nec non philosophiae, ac poesios principum Aristotelis & Homeri authoritas …. Philosophus enim in ordine rapacium diurnarum primo loco aquilam nominat; ultimo vero vulturem.”.
66.
“In tres partes avium omnium … historia dividetur; in quarum prima de iam recensitis [i.e. the rapaces], agetur; secunda praeter granivoras aves, gallinacea scilicet genera, columbas, pavones, phasianos, similesque alias, eas quoque continebit, quae vermibus victitant, item quae pamphagae sunt.”.
67.
“Tertia ac postrema parte aves omnes quotquot vel in aquis, ut anseres, mergi, anates, vel circa eas, ut ardeae, victitant, recensebuntur.”.
68.
“De avibus mediae naturae, hoc est, partim quadrupedis, partim avis naturam referentibus.”.
69.
“De avibus fabulosis.”.
70.
“De corvino genere, et de aliis nonnullis avibus, quibus rostrum durum, ac robustum est.”.
71.
See Part I, p. 114.
72.
See Part I, p. 125.
73.
“De avibus pulveratricibus.”.
74.
“De avibus, quae simul se pulverant, et lavant.”.
75.
See Part I, p. 129.
76.
“De avibus, quae circa aquas degunt.”.
77.
Their main work on birds was published by Ray after Willughby's death as Francisci Willughbeii Ornithologiae libri tres (London, 1676), and then in English (the version I have used) as The ornithology of Francis Willughby (London, 1678). It has been disputed how much of the work is Willughby's and how much Ray's (see RavenC. E., John Ray (Cambridge, 1942), especially pp. 334–6). I shall here refer to this work as by “Willughby and Ray”.
78.
WillughbyRay, Ornithology, Preface.
79.
Raven, John Ray (ref. 288), 182.
80.
HA VI 559a19–20; GA 751b12–13.
81.
See Part I, pp. 122–4.
82.
See ref. 288.
83.
Especially in Sophist and Politicus.
84.
See Part I, p. 112 and the passages cited in ref. 10.
85.
As Stresemann, Ornithology (ref. 77), 42 points out.
86.
As when, for instance, Aristotle says in HA VIII 3 that there are two species of gypes (Vultures), “the one small and whiter, the other larger and more ash-coloured” (592b6–8), or that byas is “in shape like a Little Owl, but in size no smaller than an Eagle” (592b9–10).
87.
See (e.g.) CampbellLack, Dictionary of birds (ref. 25), s.v. Ecology; Speciation.
88.
Met. Z 1041a10-b9; Met. H 1044a36-b1.
89.
StresemannE., “The development of theories which affected the taxonomy of birds”, Ibis, xcii (1950), 123–31, pp. 123–4. (See also his later work, Ornithology, (ref. 77), 4–7, 41–42. Stresemann was probably aware that his earlier account was an over-simplification: In the later work he writes of Aldrovandi et al. following “supposedly Aristotelian principles”.).
90.
Gotthelf, “Notes towards a study of substance” (ref. 193), especially p. 48.
91.
Used of ‘birds of prey’ by Aelian, De natura animaliumIII45.
92.
AldrovandiU., Ornithologia (Bologna, 1599–1603), i, 17–20, “De aquilae dignitate”.
93.
See especially Part I, p. 124.
94.
See Part I, p. 124.
95.
WottonEdward, De differentiis animalium (Paris, 1552), discusses these birds in his chapters 126–31, but seems to mention no general characteristic of them as a group, except that they are fissipede.
96.
See Part I, p. 135.
97.
Newton, Dictionary of birds (ref. 212), Introduction, p. 7.
98.
Raven, John Ray (ref. 288), 310, 322. Compare Stresemann, Ornithology (ref. 77), 43 on Willughby and Ray's classification: “for a long time this system remained unsurpassed”.
99.
Newton, Dictionary of birds (ref. 212), Introduction, p. 43.
100.
See Stresemann, “Development of theories” (ref. 300), 125–7, and Ornithology (ref. 77), 171–81.1 cannot here discuss the metaphysical theories (Aristotelian in their origin) on which Vigors's scheme is based.
101.
YarrellWilliam, History of British birds (1st edn, London, 1839–43), i, 2 and 149; ii, 250 and 377; iii, 53–54. The Summary and Part I of this article appeared on pp. 111–151 of our June issue.
