The Natural History of Birds
From the French of the Count de Buffon; Illustrated with Engravings, and a Preface, Notes, and Additions, by the Translator

The first comprehensive accounts of eighteenth-century ornithology, first published between 1770 and 1783 and translated into English in 1793.

Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (Author), William Smellie (Edited and translated by)

9781108022996, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 November 2010

558 pages, 27 b/w illus.
21.6 x 3.2 x 14 cm, 0.7 kg

Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88), was a French mathematician who was considered one of the leading naturalists of the Enlightenment. An acquaintance of Voltaire and other intellectuals, he worked as Keeper at the Jardin du Roi from 1739, and this inspired him to research and publish a vast encyclopaedia and survey of natural history, the ground-breaking Histoire Naturelle, which he published in forty-four volumes between 1749 and 1804. These volumes, first published between 1770 and 1783 and translated into English in 1793, contain Buffon's survey and descriptions of birds from the Histoire Naturelle. Based on recorded observations of birds both in France and in other countries, these volumes provide detailed descriptions of various bird species, their habitats and behaviours and were the first publications to present a comprehensive account of eighteenth-century ornithology. Volume 2 covers wild and domestic fowl and pigeons.

1. Great bustard
2. Little bustard
3. The cock
4. The turkey
5. The guinea pintado
5. The wood grouse
6. The black grouse
7. The black grouse
8. Broad-tailed black grouse
9. The black grouse with variable plumage
10. The hazel grouse
11. The scotch hazel grouse
12. The pin-tailed grouse
13. The red grouse
14. The white attagas
15. The ptarmigan
16. Hudson's-bay ptarmigan
17. The peacock
18. The common pheasant
19. The hoccos
20. The partridge
21. The red partridge
22. The quail
23. The pigeon domestica
24. The ring pigeon
25. The common turtle.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ]