Timeline of Ornithology - 19th Century

19th Century

• 1800-1804 - "Le Geographe" and "Le Naturaliste" leave France for the Pacific ocean under the overall command of Nicolas Baudin. The naturalists on board made a collection of over 100,000 zoological specimens. Many bird species will be described by Louis Jean Pierre Vieillot and published in Nouveau dictionnaire d'histoire naturelle (1816–1819).
• 1800 – Johann Conrad Susemihl begins publishing a survey of the birds of Germany, Teutsche Ornithologie oder Naturgeschichte aller Vögel Teutschlands in naturgetreuen Abbildungen und Beschreibungen - a 22 part work completed in 1817.

• 1801 – Alexander Wilson begins his study of North American birds, resulting in his American Ornithology (1808–1814), later updated by Charles Lucien Bonaparte
• 1802 – Publication of George Montagu's Ornithological Dictionary. In this year also Histoire des colibris, oiseaux-mouches, jacamars et promerops by Jean Baptiste Audebert was published two years after his death.
• 1802 - Louis Dufresne popularizes the use of arsenical soap for preserving birds, a technique which had enabled the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris to build the greatest collection of birds in the world
• 1804-1806 - Lewis and Clark Expedition. This was the first overland expedition undertaken by the United States to the Pacific coast and back. The many birds seen include Steller's Jay and Greater Prairie Chicken.
• 1805 - Johann Fischer von Waldheim founded the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow.
• 1806 - André Marie Constant Duméril publishes Zoologie analytique reducing the number of bird orders to six
• 1806 - Sébastien Gérardin publishes Tableau élémentaire d'ornithologie, ou Histoire naturelle des oiseaux que l'on rencontre communément en France
• 1811 – Publication of Peter Simon Pallas' Zoographia Russo-Asiatica includes details of the birds encountered in his journeys through Siberia
• 1811 - Marie Jules Cesar Lelorgne de Savigny publishes Système des oiseaux de l'Égypte et de la Syrie
• 1811 - Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger published Prodromus systematis mammalium et avium in which he proposed the review of the Linnean system and firmly established the concept of the Family earlier proposed by François Marie Daudin. Illiger is considered the founder of the School of Nomenclatural Purists.
• 1812-13 - Johann Philipp Achilles Leisler describes new birds in Naturgeschichte Deutschlands begun by Johann Matthäus Bechstein. One is the Little Stint
• 1812 - Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia founded.
• 1815 – Coenraad Jacob Temminck publishes his Manuel d'ornithologie, the standard work on European birds for many years
• 1817-1820 - Johann Baptist Ritter von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius expedition to Brazil. They collect 350 bird species which are conserved in Zoologische Staatssammlung München.
• 1820 - Heinrich Kuhl travels to Java with Johan Coenraad van Hasselt.They send 2000 bird skins to the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie founded in the same year 1820.
• 1820-1844 - Johann Friedrich Naumann publishes Naturgeschichte der Vögel Deutschlands, The Natural History of German Birds
• 1820–23 - Encouraged by William Elford Leach William John Swainson became the first illustrator and naturalist to use lithography for his Zoological Illustrations a relatively cheap work which did not require an engraver.
• (1826–39) - René Primevère Lesson writes the vertebrate zoological section of Voyage au tour du monde sur La Coquille. Lesson was the first naturalist to see live birds of paradise in the Moluccas and New Guinea.
• 1826-1829 - Jules Dumont d'Urville commands The first voyage of the Astrolabe. Zoological specimens from the South Pacific are collected for the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris.These include many birds.
• 1826-1829 - Russian Senjawin expedition. Heinrich von Kittlitz collects 754 specimens of 314 bird species, including unique specimens of species that subsequently became extinct to the museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• 1826-1830 HMS Adventure and HMS Beagle under the overall command of Phillip Parker King begin a hydrographic survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. One of the birds collected and described by King is the Imperial Shag.
• 1827–1838 – Publication of John James Audubon's Birds of America
• 1828-1838 - Magnus von Wright publishes Svenska Foglar
• 1828 - Roret, (Libraire) publish the second edition of Pierre Boitard and Emmanuel Canivet Manuel du naturaliste préparateur ou l’art d’empailler les animaux et de conserver les végétaux et les minéraux
• 1831–1836 – Charles Darwin travels to South America and the Galapagos Islands on board HMS Beagle. His study of Galapagos finches gives him ideas on natural selection
• 1832 – Edward Lear publishes Illustrations of the Family of the Psittacidae, or Parrots
• 1832 - Johann Georg Wagler publishes Monographia Psittacorum
• 1832 - Pablo de La Llave describes the Resplendent Quetzal
• 1833 - Fauna Japonica based on the collections made by Philipp Franz von Siebold and his successor Heinrich Bürger commenced. It was published serially in five volumes between 1833 and 1850.
• 1837 - Eugen Ferdinand von Homeyer publishes a study of the birds of Pomerania Systematische Übersicht der Vögel Pommerns.
• 1838 – John Gould travels to Australia with his wife Elizabeth to study the birds of that country
• 1840 – John Gould publishes the first part of The Birds of Australia
• 1840 - Luigi Benoit publishes Ornitologia Siciliana
• 1843-1849 - Artwork and scientific notes for John Cotton's Birds of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales gathered.
• 1844 – The last Great Auk is recorded in Iceland
• 1844 (-1849) - George Robert Gray head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum publishes Genera of Birds (1844–49), illustrated by David William Mitchell and Joseph Wolf. It includes 46,000 references.
• 1846 - Thomas Bellerby Wilson purchases the bird collection of François Victor Masséna
• 1850 - Deutsche Ornithologen-Gesellschaft founded.
• 1853-1856 - John Cassin Illustrations of the Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British and Russian America
• 1855 - Alexander von Middendorff writes Die Isepiptesen Russlands, an account of bird migration in Russia
• 1855 - Wagner Free Institute of Science founded
• 1857 – Philip Sclater presents his paper (published in 1858) On the General Geographical Distribution of the Members of the Class Aves to the Linnean Society setting up six zoological regions which he called the Palaearctic, Aethiopian, Indian, Australasian, Nearctic and Neotropical. They are still in use.
• 1858 – Alfred Newton forms the British Ornithologists' Union
• 1859 - Hermann Schlegel sends Heinrich Agathon Bernstein to collect birds in New Guinea.
• 1861 – Fossil of archaeopteryx found in Germany supports link between dinosaurs and birds
• 1861 - Museum Godeffroy founded in Hamburg. The museum is devoted to the zoology and ethnography of the South Seas and Australia.
• 1864 - Illustrirtes Tierleben commenced
• 1866 - August Emil Holmgren Skandinaviens foglar (Birds of Scandinavia)
• 1868 – Association for the Protection of Sea-Birds formed in England
• 1868 - Bernard Altum publishes Der Vogel und sein Leben (Birds and their lives)
• 1868-1882 - José Vicente Barbosa du Bocage begins Aves das possessões portuguesas d’ Africa occidental que existem no Museu de Lisboa, da 1ª à 24ª lista 1868 a 1882
• 1869 – The Sea Birds Preservation Act 1869 is the first law passed in the United Kingdom to protect birds
• 1871 - Henry Eeles Dresser commences A History of the Birds of Europe with Richard Bowdler Sharpe.
• 1872 - Leonardo Fea becomes an assistant at Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova
• 1872 - Julius von Haast describes Harpagornis moorei the extinct bird subsequently known as Haast's Eagle
• 1872-1877 - Christoph Gottfried Andreas Giebel begins Thesaurus ornithologiae
• 1873 – Publication of Ornitologia Italiana by Paolo Savi
• 1873 - Biophysicist Hermann von Helmholtz develops a mathematical law of bird flight in Uber ein Theorem, geometrisch Ohnliche Bewegungen flussiger Korper betreffend, nebst Anwendung auf das Problem, Luftballons zu lenken (Monatsbericht d. K. Akad. Wiss. Berlin). The law is that the weight of a flying animal is proportionate to the cube of its linear dimension and the wing area is proportional to the square of the animals linear dimension. This is true of soaring birds.
• 1874 - Richard Bowdler Sharpe publishes the first of a series of catalogues of birds in the collection of the British Museum
• 1876 - Friedrich Brüggeman publishes Beiträge zur Ornithologie von Celebes und Sangir
• 1877 - Émile Oustalet and Armand David publish Les Oiseaux de la Chine
• 1879 – Richard Owen publishes the results of his studies of Moa fossils
• 1879 - Tommaso Salvadori publishes Ornitologia della Papuasia e delle Molucche. Torino
• 1880 - Percy Evans Freke 1880 A comparative catalogue of birds found in Europe and North America.The Scientific proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society.
• 1881 - Kōno Bairei publishes Album of One Hundred Birds
• 1883 – Foundation of the American Ornithologists' Union
• 1883 – Foundation of the Bombay Natural History Society
• 1884 – First International Ornithological Congress held in Vienna, with Gustav Radde as President
• 1884 - Elliott Coues writes to The Auk beginning a successful campaign to establish trinomial nomenclature - the taxonomic classification of subspecies.
• 1886 - Herman Schalow publishes Die Musophagidae
• 1887 - Edgar Leopold Layard publishes The Birds of South Africa
• 1888 - Max Fürbringer uses a mathematical analysis to create a classification system for birds that influences avian taxonomy throughout the 20th century
• 1889 – Foundation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to campaign against the plumage trade
• 1889 – Ludwig Koch makes the first sound recording of birdsong, that of a captive White-rumped Shama Copsychus malabaricus
• 1889 - Pioneer of aviation Otto Lilienthal publishes Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation
• 1889 (-1898) - Eugene William Oates and William Thomas Blanford publish the bird volumes of The Fauna of British India, Including Ceylon and Burma.

• 1889 - The Imperial Natural History Museum opens in Vienna. The collections are vast, partly due to Empress Maria Theresa having encouraged science in the middle of the previous century, influenced and instructed by her personal physician Gerard van Swieten.
• 1889 - Charles B. Cory publishes The Birds of the West Indies
• 1890 - Giovanni Batista Grassi and Raimondo Feletti discover Avian malaria
• 1892 - Walter Rothschild opens a private museum in Tring. It housed one of the largest natural history collections in the world.
• 1894 - Although Ignazio Porro had invented binoculars in 1859, high quality binoculars were first on sale in 1894, after the optical designs of Ernst Abbe were combined with the production techniques of Carl Zeiss. Binoculars revolutionised bird identification and field observation.
• 1896 - Valentin Lvovich Bianchi becomes Head of the Department of Ornithology at the Imperial Academy of Sciences of Petrograd.
• 1899 – Hans Christian Cornelius Mortensen of Viborg, Denmark, is the first ornithologist to undertake systematic large-scale ringing. He uses numbered aluminium rings to mark 165 Common Starlings caught in nestboxes