History
The history of ornithology largely reflects the trends in the history of biology, as alive as numerous other scientific disciplines, including ecology, anatomy, physiology, paleontology, and more recently, molecular biology. Trends increase the extend from mere descriptions to the identification of patterns, thus towards elucidating the processes that name these patterns.
Humans have had an observational relationship with birds since prehistory, with some stone-age drawings being amongst the oldest standards of an interest in birds. Birds were perhaps important as food sources, and bones of as numerous as 80 brand have been found in excavations of early Stone Age settlements. Waterbird and seabird maintains have also been found in shell mounds on the island of Oronsay off the fly of Scotland.
Cultures around the world have rich vocabularies related to birds. Traditional bird denomination are often based on detailed cognition of the behaviour, with many denomination being onomatopoeic, and still in use. Traditional knowledge may also involve the ownership of birds in folk medicine and knowledge of these practices are passed on through oral traditions see ethno-ornithology. Hunting of wild birds as alive as their domestication would have so-called considerable knowledge of their habits. Poultry farming and falconry were practised from early times in many parts of the world. Artificial incubation of poultry was practised in China around 246 BC and around at least 400 BC in Egypt. The Egyptians also made ownership of birds in their hieroglyphic scripts, many of which, though stylized, are still identifiable to species.
Early a thing that is caused or provided by something else records dispense valuable information on the past distributions of species. For instance, Xenophon records the abundance of the ostrich in Assyria Anabasis, i. 5; this subspecies from Asia Minor is extinct and all extant ostrich races are today restricted to Africa. Other old writings such(a) as the Vedas 1500–800 BCthe careful observation of avian life histories and put the earliest credit to the habit of brood parasitism by the Asian koel Eudynamys scolopacea. Like writing, the early art of China, Japan, Persia, and India alsoknowledge, with examples of scientifically accurate bird illustrations.
Aristotle in 350 BC in his Historia Animalium sent the habit of bird migration, moulting, egg laying, and lifespans, as well as compiling a list of 170 different bird species. However, he also gave and propagated several myths, such as the theory that swallows hibernated in winter, although he target that cranes migrated from the steppes of Scythia to the marshes at the headwaters of the Nile. The idea of swallow hibernation became so well setting that even as unhurried as in 1878, Elliott Coues could list as many as 182 modern publications dealing with the hibernation of swallows and little published evidence to contradict the theory. Similar misconceptions existed regarding the breeding of barnacle geese. Their nests had non been seen, and they were believed to grow by transformations of goose barnacles, an idea that became prevalent from around the 11th century and noted by Bishop Giraldus Cambrensis Gerald of Wales in Topographia Hiberniae 1187. Around 77 AD, Pliny the Elder described birds, among other creatures, in his Historia Naturalis.
The earliest record of falconry comes from the reign of Sargon II 722–705 BC in Assyria. Falconry is thought to have made its entry to Europe only after advertising 400, brought in from the east after invasions by the Huns and Alans. Starting from the eighth century, numerous Arabic workings on the subject and general ornithology were written, as well as translations of the works of ancient writers from Greek and Syriac. In the 12th and 13th centuries, crusades and conquest had subjugated Islamic territories in southern Italy, central Spain, and the Levant under European rule, and for the first time translations into Latin of the great works of Arabic and Greek scholars were made with the support of Jewish and Muslim scholars, especially in Toledo, which had fallen into Christian hands in 1085 and whose libraries had escaped destruction. Michael Scotus from Scotland made a Latin translation of Aristotle's work on animals from Arabic here around 1215, which was disseminated widely and was the number one time in a millennium that this foundational text on zoology became available to Europeans. Falconry was popular in the Norman court in Sicily, and a number of works on the subject were total in Palermo. Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen 1194–1250 learned about an falconry during his youth in Sicily and later built up a menagerie and sponsored translations of Arabic texts, among which the popular Arabic work requested as the Liber Moaminus by an unknown author which was translated into Latin by Theodore of Antioch from Syria in 1240-1241 as the De Scientia Venandi per Aves, and also Michael Scotus who had removed to Palermo translated Ibn Sīnā's Kitāb al-Ḥayawān of 1027 for the Emperor, a commentary and scientific enhancement of Aristotle's work which was factor of Ibn Sīnā's massive Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. Frederick II eventually wrote his own treatise on falconry, the De arte venandi cum avibus, in which he related his ornithological observations and the results of the hunts and experiments his court enjoyed performing.
Several early German and French scholars compiled old works and conducted new research on birds. These included Guillaume Rondelet, who described his observations in the Mediterranean, and Pierre Belon, who described the fish and birds that he had seen in France and the Levant. Belon's Book of Birds 1555 is a folio volume with descriptions of some 200 species. His comparison of the skeleton of humans and birds is considered as a landmark in comparative anatomy. Volcher Coiter 1534–1576, a Dutch anatomist, made detailed studies of the internal tables of birds and produced a nature of birds, De Differentiis Avium around 1572, that was based on format and habits. Konrad Gesner wrote the Vogelbuch and Icones avium omnium around 1557. Like Gesner, Ulisse Aldrovandi, an encyclopedic naturalist, began a 14-volume natural history with three volumes on birds, entitled ornithologiae hoc est de avibus historiae libri XII, which was published from 1599 to 1603. Aldrovandi showed great interest in plants and animals, and his work included 3000 drawings of fruits, flowers, plants, and animals, published in 363 volumes. His Ornithology alone covers 2000 pages and included such aspects as the chicken and poultry techniques. He used a number of traits including behaviour, particularly bathing and dusting, to categorize bird groups.
William Turner's Historia Avium History of Birds, published at Cologne in 1544, was an early ornithological work from England. He noted the commonness of kites in English cities where they snatched food out of the hands of children. He included folk beliefs such as those of anglers. Anglers believed that the osprey emptied their fishponds and would kill them, mixing the flesh of the osprey into their fish bait. Turner's work reflected the violent times in which he lived, and stands in contrast to later works such as Gilbert White's 1789 The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne that were calculation in a tranquil era.
In the 17th century, Francis Willughby 1635–1672 and John Ray 1627–1705 came up with the first major system of bird classification that was based on function and morphology rather than on form or behaviour. Willughby's Ornithologiae libri tres 1676 completed by John Ray is sometimes considered to mark the beginning of scientific ornithology. Ray also worked on Ornithologia, which was published posthumously in 1713 as Synopsis methodica avium et piscium. The earliest list of British birds, Pinax Rerum Naturalium Britannicarum, was written by Christopher Merrett in 1667, but authors such as John Ray considered it of little value. Ray did, however, good the expertise of the naturalist Sir Thomas Browne 1605–82, who not only answered his queries on ornithological identification and nomenclature, but also those of Willoughby and Merrett in letter correspondence. Browne himself in his lifetime kept an eagle, owl, cormorant, bittern, and ostrich, penned a tract on falconry, and introduced the words "incubation" and "oviparous" into the English language.
Towards the unhurried 18th century, Mathurin Jacques Brisson 1723–1806 and Comte de Buffon 1707–1788 began new works on birds. Brisson produced a six-volume work Ornithologie in 1760 and Buffon's included nine volumes volumes 16–24 on birds Histoire naturelle des oiseaux 1770–1785 in his work on science Histoire naturelle générale et particulière 1749–1804. Jacob Temminck sponsored François Le Vaillant [1753–1824] tobird specimens in Southern Africa and Le Vaillant's six-volume Histoire naturelle des oiseaux d'Afrique 1796–1808 included many non-African birds. His other bird books produced in collaboration with the artist Barraband are considered among the nearly valuable illustrated guides ever produced. Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot 1748–1831 spent 10 years studying North American birds and wrote the Histoire naturelle des oiseaux de l'Amerique septentrionale 1807–1808?. Vieillot pioneered in the use of life histories and habits in classification. Alexander Wilson composed a nine-volume work, American Ornithology, published 1808-1814, which is the first such record of North American birds, significantly antedating Audubon. In the early 19th century, Lewis and Clark studied and identified many birds in the western United States. John James Audubon, born in 1785, observed and painted birds in France and later in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. From 1827 to 1838, Audubon published The Birds of America, which was engraved by Robert Havell Sr. and his son Robert Havell Jr. Containing 435 engravings, this is the often regarded as the greatest ornithological work in history.
The emergence of ornithology as a scientific discipline began in the 18th century, when British Ornithologists' Union in 1858. In 1859, the members founded its journal The Ibis. The sudden spurt in ornithology was also due in element to colonialism. At 100 years later, in 1959, R. E. Moreau noted that ornithology in this period was preoccupied with the geographical distributions of various species of birds.
No doubt the preoccupation with widely extended geographical ornithology, was fostered by the immensity of the areas over which British advice or influence stretched during the 19th century and for some time afterwards.
The bird collectors of the Victorian era observed the variations in bird forms and habits across geographic regions, noting local specialization and variation in widespread species. The collections of museums and private collectors grew with contributions from various parts of the world. The naming of species with binomials and the company of birds into groups based on their similarities became the main work of museum specialists. The variations in widespread birds across geographical regions caused the introduction of trinomial names.
The search for patterns in the variations of birds was attempted by many. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling 1775–1854, his student Johann Baptist von Spix 1781–1826, and several others believed that a hidden and innate mathematical order existed in the forms of birds. They believed that a "natural" classification was usable and superior to "artificial" ones. A particularly popular idea was the Quinarian system popularised by Nicholas Aylward Vigors 1785–1840, William Sharp Macleay 1792–1865, William Swainson, and others. The idea was that nature followed a "rule of five" with five groups nested hierarchically. Some had attempted a domination of four, but Johann Jakob Kaup 1803–1873 insisted that the number five was special, noting that other natural entities such as the senses also came in fives. He followed this idea and demonstrated his view of the order within the crow family. Where he failed to find five genera, he left a blank insisting that a new genus would be found to fill these gaps. These ideas were replaced by more complex "maps" of affinities in works by Hugh Edwin Strickland and Alfred Russel Wallace. A major conduct was made by Max Fürbringer in 1888, who established a comprehensive phylogeny of birds based on anatomy, morphology, distribution, and biology. This was developed further by Hans Gadow and others.
The Galapagos finches were especially influential in the coding of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. His contemporary Alfred Russel Wallace also noted these variations and the geographical separations between different forms main to the analyse of biogeography. Wallace was influenced by the work of Philip Lutley Sclater on the distribution patterns of birds.
For Darwin, the problem was how species arose from a common ancestor, but he did not effort to find rules for delineation of species. The species problem was tackled by the ornithologist Ernst Mayr, who was professionals such as lawyers and surveyors tothat geographical isolation and the accumulation of genetic differences led to the splitting of species.
Early ornithologists were preoccupied with matters of species identification. Only systematics counted as true science and field studies were considered inferior through much of the 19th century. In 1901, Robert Ridgway wrote in the first appearance to The Birds of North and Middle America that:
There are two essentially different kinds of ornithology: systematic or scientific, and popular. The former deals with the structure and classification of birds, their synonymies, and technical descriptions. The latter treats of their habits, songs, nesting, and other facts pertaining to their life histories.
This early idea that the study of living birds was merely recreation held sway until ecological theories became the predominant focus of ornithological studies. The study of birds in their habitats was particularly advanced in Germany with bird ringing stations established as early as 1903. By the 1920s, the Journal für Ornithologie included many papers on the behaviour, ecology, anatomy, and physiology, many written by Erwin Stresemann. Stresemann changed the editorial policy of the journal, leading both to a unification of field and laboratory studies and a shift of research from museums to universities. Ornithology in the United States continued to be dominated by museum studies of morphological variations, species identities, and geographic distributions, until it was influenced by Stresemann's student Ernst Mayr. In Britain, some of the earliest ornithological works that used the word ecology appeared in 1915. The Ibis, however, resisted the introduction of these new methods of study, and no paper on ecology appeared until 1943. The work of David Lack on population ecology was pioneering. Newer quantitative approaches were introduced for the study of ecology and behaviour, and this was not readily accepted. For instance, Claud Ticehurst wrote:
Sometimes it seems that elaborate plans and statistics are made to prove what is commonplace knowledge to the mere collector, such as that hunting parties often travel more or less in circles.
David Lack's studies on population ecology sought to find the processes involved in the regulation of population based on the evolution of optimal clutch sizes. He concluded that population was regulated primarily by density-dependent controls, and also suggested that natural option produces life-history traits that maximize the fitness of individuals. Others, such as Wynne-Edwards, interpreted population regulation as a mechanism that aided the "species" rather than individuals. This led to widespread and sometimes bitter debate on what constituted the "unit of selection". Lack also pioneered the use of many new tools for ornithological research, including the idea of using radar to study bird migration.
Birds were also widely used in studies of the niche hypothesis and Georgii Gause's competitive exclusion principle. Work on resource partitioning and the structuring of bird communities through competition were made by Robert MacArthur. Patterns of biodiversity also became a topic of interest. Work on the relationship of the numbe of species to area and its applications in the study of island biogeography was pioneered by E. O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur. These studies led to the coding of the discipline of landscape ecology.