I never knew people kept lists until I joined BF, now I am not someone who keeps a birdlist, but what I would like to know is this: when did this part of birdwatching start?
I don't think it started 100 years ago or so, because then people were far to busy shooting any unknown bird on sight.
So does anyone know?
Well, I don't know for a fact, RZ, but I would guess listing is as old as birding, and I there will always have been those who do, and those who don't.
As for the blow-em-out-the-sky brigade, if they were actually biologists, then I would say that is a different thing, although I would also expect they kept some sort of record which might constitute a "list".
Linnaeus kept lists of everything that anyone had found - and that was back in the 1750's. Published them too . . .
And I'm sure he wasn't the first!