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)

9781108023054, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 25 November 2010

540 pages, 39 b/w illus.
21.6 x 3.1 x 14 cm, 0.68 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 8 covers domestic and foreign marine birds.

1. The ibis
2. The curlews
3. The lapwing
4. The plovers
5. The pluvian
6. The great plover
7. The long-shank
8. The oyster-catcher
9. The swift-runner
10. The turn-stone
11. The water-ouzel
12. The water-thrush
13. The knot
14. The rails
15. The caurale
16. The water-hen
17. The little water-hen
18. The porzana, or the great water-hen
19. The grinetta
20. The smirring
21. The glout
22. The jacana
23. The sultana hen, or porphyrion
24. The common coot
25. The crested coot
26. The phalaropes
27. The grebe
28. The chesnut
29. The divers
30. The merganser
31. The pelican
32. The cormorant
33. The shag
34. The sea swallows
35. The tropic bird
36. The boobies
37. The gannet
38. The frigat
39. The gulls and the mews
40. The labbe, or dung-bird
41. The long-tailed labbe
42. The anhinga
43. The rufous anhinga
44. The shearbill
45. The noddy
46. The avocet
47. The runner
48. The red flamingo.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ]