PREFACE. 



Ornithologists will perceive with pleasure that full justice has 

 been done to the unrivalled series of South-American Passerine 

 Birds which the British Museum now possesses by securing the 

 aid of Mr. Selater, who for many years has been the principal 

 authority on the subject, and who has also undertaken to prepare 

 one of the succeeding volumes. 



The New-World Passerine Birds were but poorly represented in 

 the British Museum before the acquisition of the Salvin-Godman 

 and Selater Collections ; and only a few of the specimens of the 

 old collection, viz. those of which the precise origin is known, or to 

 which some special interest is attached, have been retained and 

 are recorded in the present volume. 



ALBERT GUNTKEE, 



Keeper of tlie Department of Zoology. 

 British Museum, N. H., 

 May 7, 1886. 



