But the work in systematic zoology remains incomplete and many native species are still undescribed or imperfectly classified. It is perhaps fortunate that a few faithful systematists remain at their tasks and tend to keep the experimentalists from the disaster which might otherwise result from the confusion of the species under investigation.
Period of Descriptive Natural History.—Previous to 1847.
Of the few American naturalists whose writings were published toward the end of the eighteenth century and at the beginning of the nineteenth the names of William Bartram (1739–1823), Benjamin Barton (1766–1815), Samuel Mitchill (1764–1831), William Peck (1763–1822), and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), require special mention. Bartram’s entertaining volume describing his travels through the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, published in 1793, contains a most interesting account of the birds and other animals which he found.
Barton wrote many charming essays on the natural history of animals, but was more particularly interested in botany. Mitchill’s most important works include a history of the fishes of New York (1814), and additions to an edition of Bewick’s General History of Quadrupeds. The latter, published in 1804, contains descriptions and figures of some American species and is the first American work on mammals.
Peck has the distinction of writing the first paper on systematic zoology published in America. This was a description of new species of fishes and was printed in 1794. He is also well known for his work on insects and fungi.
Jefferson in 1781 published an interesting book describing the natural history of Virginia, and during his presidency was of inestimable service to zoology through his support of scientific expeditions to the western portions of the country.
Previous to Agassiz’s introduction of laboratory methods of study in comparative anatomy and embryology in 1847, American naturalists generally confined their attention to the study of the classification and habits of the multitude of undescribed animals and plants of the region.
Such studies were naturally begun on the larger and more generally interesting animals such as the birds and mammals, and although many of these were fairly well described as to species before the opening of the nineteenth century, little was known of their habits. The natural history of our eastern birds first became well known through the accurate illustrations and exquisitely written descriptions of Alexander Wilson (in 1808–1813). Bonaparte’s continuation of Wilson’s work was published in four folio volumes beginning in 1826.
In 1828 appeared the first of Audubon’s magnificent folio illustrations of our birds. These were published in England, with later editions of smaller plates in America. Nuttall’s Manual of the Ornithology of the United States appeared in 1832–1834.
The second work on American mammals appeared in the second American edition of Guthrie’s Geography, published in 1815. The author is supposed to have been George Ord, although his name does not appear. In 1825 Harlan published his “Fauna Americana: Descriptions of the Mammiferous Animals inhabiting North America.” This was largely a compilation from European writers, particularly from Demarest’s Mammalogie, and had little value.