specimens to Mr. George Edwards, who did them ample justice, in
his splendid “ Natural History of Birds the most original and
valuable work of the kind in the English language. In the first volume,
he has figured and described with accuracy ten of Mr. Light’s birds,
and in his third volume, which appeared in 1749, thirty-two of Mr.
Isham’s are equally well illustrated f.
In that year also, Ellis published his account of the voyage of the
Dobbs and California, wherein he mentions some of the animals that
came under his notice in the winter of 1747, which he passed in
Hayes River J ; and a narrative of the proceedings of the same voyage,
by Mr. Drage, Clerk of the California, is still more full on points
relating to Natural History. During the next twenty years, no
additional information was obtained of the Zoology of those parts;
but Mr. William Wales having been sent to Hudson’s Bay, in 1768,
to observe the transit of Venus, Mr. Graham, Governor of the Company’s
post at Severn River, embraced the opportunity afforded by
his return to England, of transmitting a collection of quadrupeds,
birds, and fishes to the Royal Society. These being described by
John Reinhold Forster, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1772 §,
excited the attention of the scientific world; and, by desire of the
Royal Society, directions were given by the Governor and Committee
of the Hudson’s Bay Company that objects of Natural History should
be annually sent to England. Mr. Humphrey Martin, accordingly,
sent home several hundred specimens of animals and plants,
collected at Albany Fort, of which he was Governor; and Mr. H utchins,
who succeeded him in that office, was still more industrious, *§
* Edwards presented a copy of this work, coloured by his own hand, to the Royal Society; and
another copy, which he sent to Linnaeus, returning to England again when Sir James Smith acquired
the invaluable museum and library of that prin ce of naturalists, is now in the possession of the Lin-
nean Society. The Linnean specific names are added to it in manuscript.
t In four instances Edwards devotes separate plates to the males and females, which reduces the
number of species of birds from Hudson’s Bay, introduced into his work, to thirty-eight.
J York Factory is situated on the alluvial point of land which separates this river from the more
important stream of Nelson's River, and is the place where the principal part of the waders and
water-fowl collected on Sir John Franklin’s first Expedition were procured.
§ The species of birds enumerated by Forster are fifty-seven, of which twenty-two had been previously
made known by Edwards ; while sixteen, figured by the latter, do not enter Forster’s list.
not only in preparing many specimens, but in drawing up minute
descriptions of all the quadrupeds and birds he could obtain, adding
their native names, with notices of their nidification, food, and habits.
His observations *, which, in fact, embrace almost all that has been
recorded of the habits of the Hudson’s Bay birds up to the present
time, being communicated to Latham and Pennant, are incorporated
in the “ General Synopsis of Birds,” and in “ Arctic Zoology.”
Indeed, Pennant, in some instances, appears to have adopted Mr.
Hutchins’s descriptions, though unaccompanied by specimens, prefixing
the names of nearly-resembling European birds, which an
actual comparison would have shown to have been quite distinct;
and in this way several species have been enumerated in systematic
works as natives of Hudson’s Bay, which do not actually exist there.
On the other hand, Mr. Hutchins has distinctly noticed a few species
which have been but very lately admitted into the ornithological
systems.
Captain Cook’s third voyage, in 1777-8, contains some information
respecting the animals of the north-west coasts of America and
Behring’s Straits, but, unfortunately, no figures of the birds were
published ; and the compendious notices which are contained in the
works of Pennant and Latham, defective as they are in details of
structure, are, in many instances, insufficient to enable us to identify
the species, or to ascertain their proper situation in the system. The
specimens themselves, collected on this and Cook’s other voyages, of
unrivalled extent and interest, which ought to have been carefully
preserved for reference in a national museum, have either gone to
enrich foreign collections, or are entirely lost to science.
Pennant’s “ Arctic Zoology,” which appeared in 1785, contains the
fullest account of the birds of Arctic America which has hitherto
been published. It embraces the species introduced by Latham in
his “ Synopsis,” which was then in course of publication; but, in
common with other ornithological works of that period, it includes
many specific names, attached merely to a different state of plumage,
* In one volume folio, in the Library of the Hudson’s Bay Company. b 2