ORNITHOLOGY is the science of birds. We begin with the records of birds made by Aurignacian man during the last glacial epoch of the Ice age in France and Spain—paintings on the walls of caves, or figures or incisions carved on bits of horn, bone or stone. The birds that have been identified thus far from this remote Palaeolithic art include the crane, duck, goose, grouse, owl, partridge and swan. In the more recent Neolithic period, outlines of birds are more common, so that in the cave at Tajo Segura, in the province of Cadiz, southern Spain, Col. Willoughby Verner has found figures of species of birds, the great bustard, crane, duck, goose, raven, spoonbill, flamingo, purple gallinule, glossy ibis, stork, eagle and marsh harrier. To these archaeolo gists assign an antiquity of 6-8,000 years. The Palaeolithic designs are much older.
From a painting and a statuette of the common fowl from Egypt, made about 4400 B.c., it is believed that this bird was even then kept in captivity, while knowledge of the domesticated pigeon in the same country, according to Canon Tristram, goes back to the 5th dynasty, about 3500 B.C. Record of the use of pigeons as carriers of messages is found a little later. In a tomb of the 4th dynasty of about 3700 B.C., at Meidoum, in Egypt, Mariette discovered a fresco showing red-breasted and white f ronted geese, whose painted colours are said to be exactly like those seen in the two species to-day.
Early Writings.—There are many incidental references to birds in the Bible, those in the Old Testament being of con siderable antiquity. The writings of Aristotle (384-322 B.c.), though they do not attempt to give a connected account, include statements (according to Sundevall) that concern about 17o species of birds. He obtained part of his information from still earlier writers whose works are lost. Pliny the elder (d. A.D. 79), in his Historia Naturalis, devoted Book X. to birds, taking much from Aristotle. Aelian (d. about A.D. 140) made various notes on birds, compiled in part from older authors.
Early Saxon poets mention the gannet and several other birds of uncertain identity in songs current during the 6th and 7th centuries, and during the latter came the first records of falconry, apparently introduced by the Saxons into Britain. About the middle of the 8th century the Epistolae Sancti Bonifacie informs us that Boniface, archbishop of Mons in Belgium, presented to Ethelbert, king of Kent, a hawk and two falcons. In the laws of Howel, king of Cambria, supposedly in the loth century, there is statement of the hunting of the pheasant, and allusion to hawk ing. Incidental references to hunting with hawks are found in accounts of the activities of Athelstan, and of Edward the Con fessor. Aelfric's Vocabulary, a list of words prepared in the loth century, possibly for educational use, and another of somewhat later date, contain names of more than ioo birds, while in the Colloquy of Aelfric, a series of dialogues between a master and his pupils, are references to hunting with and training of hawks. In the writings and manuscripts of the 12th and 13th centuries are many references to hawking, descriptions of decoys in which ducks were captured alive, records of heronries, and an account of a great flight of crossbills into England in the year 125i.
Following the invention of printing, William Turner published in 1544 a commentary on the birds of Aristotle and Pliny, pre pared in accordance with treatment that was the forerunner of modern methods. This was followed in 1555 by Conrad Gesner's Historia Animalium, whose third book dealt with birds and con tained many original observations, as the author travelled ex tensively and recorded his impressions first-hand. Pierre Belon, whose Histoire de la Nature des Oyseaux appeared also in 1555, had considerable knowledge of the anatomy of birds, and seems to have been the first to correlate the various parts of the avian skeleton with those of man's.