Africa. The late Professor Sundevall has published an elaborate
review of Levaillant’s six volumes, which enables the ornithologist
so to study the work that all the species, whether truly South
African or not, can be easily made out. We have found little to
dissent from in Professor SundevalPs admirable treatise.
A work of a much more genuine character was commenced when
Sir Andrew Smith began to investigate the Zoology of South Africa.
In the South Africcm Quarterly Journal from 1829 to 1834, we
find a descriptive account of the birds of South Africa, which,
however, never seems to have proceeded beyond the Birds of Prey ;
and in the same journal, there are several scattered descriptions of
other kinds of birds.
In 1836, a separate Report of the expedition into Central Africa
was published by Sir Andrew Smith, and this was in every
respect a most important contribution to the avifauna of the South
African region. It was followed by his great work, the “ Illustrations
of the Zoology of South Africa,” in which no less than 114 plates of
birds were published. These were drawn by the late Mr. Ford,
and although this admirable artist was by far the best draughtsman
' of reptiles and fishes that science has ever known, his efforts with
regard to the birds were not so successful, and considerable
confusion, especially in the case of the smaller Warblers and Larks,
has followed from the difficulty of identifying Mr. Ford’s plates.
Excepting descriptions of various South African birds in the works
of Burchell, Temminck, Swainson, Gray, Bonaparte, and others,
nothing of any importance appears to have been published until
SundevalPs account of Wahlberg’s collections made its appearance
in the Stockholm OEfversigt for 1850. Wahlberg penetrated
into the Transvaal, at that time included under the general heading
of “ Caffraria.” He procured many interesting species, both from
Natal and the Transvaal State ; and he afterwards visited Damara
Land, where he was unfortunately killed by an elephant. A short
paper of his with descriptions of new species was published in 1855,
up to which time we had known nothing of the avifauna of that part
of South-western Africa, beyond the scanty descriptions of species
given by Mr. G. R. Waterhouse in the Appendix to Sir J. Alexander’s
Expedition, and a short paper by Messrs. Strickland and Sclater,
published in the “ Contributions to Ornithology” for 1852. Then
followed a more elaborate essay by Grill on the birds collected by
Victorin at the Knysna and in the Karroo country j this was issued
in 1858. About this date, moreover, several excellent ornithologists
were hard at work in the South African region. Mr. Layard was
collecting materials for a history of the Birds of South Africa,
Mr. Andersson was working well in Damara Land and Namaqua
Land, Mr. Ayres had commenced his useful labours in Natal, while
Mr. Monteiro had already begun his career as a naturalist in
Angola. Mr. Layard’s energy soon met with an adequate response
from naturalists both in Europe and at the Cape, and the publication
of his “ Birds of South Africa,” in the year 1867, will mark for
ever an epoch in the natural history of the continent; and from
this book commences the great progress which has lately been made
in our knowledge of South African ornithology. In deference to
the intentions of his friend, the late Mr. C. J. Andersson, who
intended to publish a work on the birds of South-western Africa,
Mr. Layard confined his researches to the species occurring south
of the twenty-eighth parallel of south latitude, although he was
fully aware that this was but an artificial boundary, and not a natural
one. Mr. Andersson did not survive to carry out his proposed
work, but this was undertaken by Mr. J. H. Gurney, who, in 1872,
produced an excellent edition of Mr. Andersson’s “ Birds of Damara
Land,” which has been of great assistance to us in the preparation
of the present work. Mr. Gurney has also published from time to
time a considerable number of papers on the ornithology of Natal
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