A History of the Birds of Europe, Including all the Species Inhabiting the Western Palearctic Region is a nine-volume ornithological book published in parts between 1871 and 1896. It was mainly written by Henry Eeles Dresser, although Richard Bowdler Sharpe co-authored the earlier volumes. It describes all the bird species reliably recorded in the wild in Europe and adjacent geographical areas with similar fauna, giving their worldwide distribution, variations in appearance and migratory movements.
The pioneering ornithological work of John Ray and Francis Willughby in the seventeenth century had introduced an effective classification system based on anatomical features, and a dichotomous key to help readers identify birds. This was followed by other English-language ornithologies, notably John Gould's five-volume Birds of Europe published between 1832 and 1837. Sharpe, then librarian of the Zoological Society of London, had worked closely with Gould and wanted to expand on his work by including all species reliably recorded in Europe, North Africa, parts of the Middle East and the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores. He lacked the resources to undertake this task on his own, so he proposed to Dresser that they work together on this encyclopaedia, using Dresser's extensive collection of birds and their eggs and network of contacts.
The Birds of Europe was published as 84 quarto parts, each typically containing 56 pages of text and eight plates of illustrations, the latter mainly by the Dutch artist John Gerrard Keulemans, and bound into volumes when all the parts were published. 339 copies were made, at a cost to each subscriber of £52 10s. Sharpe did not contribute after part 13, and was not listed as an author after part 17. Birds of Europe was well received by its contemporary reviewers, although a commentator in 2018 considered that Dresser's outdated views and the cost of his books meant that in the long run his works had limited influence. The Birds of Europe continued a tradition dating from the seventeenth century whereby the study and classification of specimens operated largely independently of those field observers who studied behaviour and ecology, a rift that continued until the 1920s, when the German naturalist Erwin Stresemann integrated the two strands as part of modern zoology.
Background
Early ornithologies, such as those of Conrad Gessner, Ulisse Aldrovandi and Pierre Belon, relied for much of their content on the authority of Aristotle and the teachings of the church,Birkhead (2011) pp. 18–22.Birkhead (2018) pp. 11–12. and included much extraneous material relating to the species, such as proverbs, references in history and literature, or its use as an emblem.Kusukawa (2016) p. 306. The arrangement of the species was by alphabetical order in Gessner's Historia animalium, and by arbitrary criteria in most other early works. In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Francis Bacon had advocated the advancement of knowledge through observation and experiment, and the English Royal Society and its members such as John Ray, John Wilkins and Francis Willughby sought to put the empirical method into practice,Birkhead (2018) pp. 34–38. including travelling widely to collect specimens and information.Birkhead (2018) pp. 47–50.
The first modern ornithology, intended to describe all the then-known birds worldwide,Birkhead (2018) p. 218. was produced by Ray and Willughby and published in Latin as Ornithologiae Libri Tres (Three Books of Ornithology) in 1676,Birkhead (2018) p. 225. and in English, as The Ornithology of Francis Willughby of Middleton, in 1678.Birkhead (2018) p. 236. Its innovative features were an effective classification system based on anatomical features, including the bird's beak, feet and overall size, and a dichotomous key, which helped readers to identify birds by guiding them to the page describing that group.Birkhead (2018) pp. 219–221. The authors also placed an asterisk against species of which they had no first-hand knowledge, and were therefore unable to verify.Birkhead et al. (2016) p. 292. The commercial success of the Ornithology is unknown, but it was historically significant,Birkhead (2018) p. 239. influencing writers including René Réamur, Mathurin Jacques Brisson, Georges Cuvier and Carl Linnaeus in compiling their own works.Charmantier et al. (2016) pp. 377–380.Johanson et al. (2016) p. 139.
During the early nineteenth century, a number of ornithologies were written in English, including John Gould's five-volume Birds of Europe, which was published between 1832 and 1837.McGhie (2017) pp. 97–100. Richard Bowdler Sharpe, then librarian of the Zoological Society of London, had worked closely with Gould and completed some of his books that were still unfinished when he died. He wished to build on Gould's work to include all species reliably recorded in the wild in Europe, expand the geographical range to include North Africa, parts of the Middle East and the Atlantic archipelagos of Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Azores (this extended area constitutes the Western Palaearctic realm) and to describe the worldwide distribution, variation and movements of each of the species. He lacked the resources to undertake this task on his own, so he proposed to businessman and amateur ornithologist Henry Eeles Dresser that they work together on this great encyclopaedia. Dresser had an extensive collection of European birds and their eggs, and a network of contacts who would allow him to acquire or borrow new specimens. He also had the linguistic skills to translate texts from several European languages.
Dresser and bird collecting
In an age before modern cameras and binoculars, nineteenth century ornithology was dominated by the collection of eggs taken from the nest and birds obtained through shooting. The corpses were skinned, preserved with arsenical soap, and sometimes stuffed for display.McGhie (2017) pp. 10–11. Ornithologists acquired birds and eggs through their own shooting and collecting activities, by purchases from bird markets, auctions and commercial dealers,McGhie (2017) pp. 78–83. and through exchanges with other collectors.McGhie (2017) pp. 86–87.
Henry Dresser's father, also named Henry, was a successful timber merchant, and sent his son to a school in Ahrensburg near Hamburg to learn German, and another in Gefle (now Gävle) to study Swedish. Henry junior also acquired fluency in Danish, Finnish, French and Norwegian.McGhie (2017) p. 17. Between 1856 and 1862, the younger Dresser's work sent him to Finland on three occasions and to New Brunswick twice, giving him the opportunity to add birds and eggs from these regions to his collection. On his second trip to Finland he became the first person to find a nest and eggs of the waxwing,McGhie (2017) pp. 18–21. which helped to establish his reputation as a serious ornithologist.McGhie (2017) p. 73.
In 1863 and 1864, during the American Civil War, Dresser travelled to North America, setting up shop in the Mexican border town of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, to sell goods that had evaded the Union blockade to the Confederacy.McGhie (2017) pp. 35–38. He made the most of the opportunity to add to his bird collection while there, as he did later when he relocated to San Antonio, Texas, where he met the prominent American ornithologist Adolphus Lewis Heermann.McGhie (2017) pp. 39–45.
Dresser's contacts for acquiring and exchanging specimens included Robert Swinhoe in China, who had 4,000 skins of 600 species, Thomas Blakiston in Japan, Allan Octavian Hume in India, whose 80,000 skins and 20,000 eggs were the world's largest private collection at the time, and William Blandford, a naturalist and geologist working in Persia and Central Asia.McGhie (2017) pp. 119–128. He also collaborated with prominent Russians including Nikolay Przhevalsky, Nikolai Severtzov and Sergei Buturlin. African specimens came from a variety of sources, including colonial administrators and the collections of the Germans Wilhelm Friedrich Hemprich and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg.McGhie (2017) pp. 133–135. Alfred Newton gave his friend Dresser access to a collection of birds from Lapland.McGhie (2017) p. 105. By 1868, Dresser owned 1,200 skins and several thousand eggs.McGhie (2017) p. 92. His final collection, including about 10,000 skins, is now kept at Manchester Museum, and includes the only known egg of the now-extinct slender-billed curlew.
Production
The Birds of Europe was published as 84 quarto parts between 1871 and 1896.McGhie (2017) p. 137. Each part on average contained 56 pages of text and eight plates of illustrations, and took about seven weeks to produce. This meant that for the 11-year duration of the project, Dresser was writing around a page of text a day on top of his commercial employment, and the main illustrator, John Gerrard Keulemans, was drawing a plate every six days. The publication was financed by subscription, and a year's set of 12 issues cost £6 6s; It was promoted by a prospectus containing sample articles that was sent to potential buyers using the authors' contacts in the scientific societies, including the Zoological Society of London and the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU). By the end of the first year, there were 237 subscribers, including King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (by then also Duke of Edinburgh), and the Sikh Maharaja Duleep Singh.
The text and illustrations for the main text and supplement were self-published and printed by Taylor & Francis of Fleet Street, London. The twelve parts issued each year were bound into temporary volumes, and when all the parts were finally published they were permanently bound into seven volumes using Morocco leather with gold tooling. Parts 83 and 84, containing an introduction, index, references and list of subscribers, were bound as a slim Volume 1, and the 1895–1896 supplement to the main text eventually became a ninth volume.
The complete set's final cost was £52 10s, equivalent to about £6,100 at 2025 values.McGhie (2017) pp. 146–147, at December 2025 prices calculated using Bank of England calculator Of the 339 copies, 69 were bought by naturalists, 31 by aristocrats, 229 by other private individuals, 67 by dealers and the rest by museums and other institutions. Overseas subscribers accounted for 61 of the purchased sets. Dresser gave 20 further sets, printed on thinner paper and without the plates of illustrations, to those who had contributed information.McGhie (2017) pp. 138–139.
Text
Each part of the book contained birds from different families to prevent subscribers attempting to collect only a particularly popular group, such as birds of prey or ducks, the different families coming together only when the articles and plates were reorganised in the final binding. The first part released therefore included birds as diverse as the Eurasian teal, red-footed falcon, marsh sandpiper and woodchat shrike. Articles for each species included alternative binomial names, a detailed description of both sexes and the juveniles, the bird's range, habitat and habits, and the specimens that had been examined during preparation of the text.McGhie (2017) p. 143.
The taxonomy used by Dresser was based on a scheme created by Thomas Henry Huxley and developed by Philip Sclater which used a hierarchical classification using orders and families rather than the arbitrary division into bird groups used by earlier writers. His book started with the passerines, rather than the traditional birds of prey.Dresser (1871–1896) pp. xix–xxi.