INTRODUCTION. 



Owing to my temporary illness in 1896 and 1897, I found it 

 impossible, amidst the press of other official work, to write the 

 whole of the present volume, and the description of the last four 

 Orders has, therefore, been undertaken by my colleague, Mr. "W. R. 

 Ogilvie-Grant, who wrote part of the seventeenth and the whole 

 of the twenty-second volume of the ' Catalogue of Birds.' 



The delay in the production of this final volume of the ' Catalogue ' 

 is much to be regretted, but has been unavoidable, and I rejoice to 

 see the completion of the work which I commenced twenty-six 

 years ago. In 1872 the collection of ornithological specimens could 

 not have been more than 35,000 in number, and the series now in 

 the British Museum is about 350,000 skins of birds and 50,000 

 eggs. This increase is principally due to the donations of Mr. Allan 

 Hume, Messrs. Salvin and Godman, Major Wardlaw-Eamsay, the 

 late Mr. Seebohm, Colonel Biddulph, and Dr. W. T. Blanford ; but 

 amongst other notable collections acquired by the Museum during 

 the past twenty-six years may be mentioned the following : — 



The Wallace Collection (Malayan). 

 The Sclater Collection (American). 

 The ShcUey Collection (African). 

 The Sharpe Collection (African). 

 The Gould Collection (General). 

 The Gould Collection (Humming-birds). 



There are also a number of smaller collections of great value 

 which have been presented to the Museum or purchased by it. 



The species of Platalece described in the present volume are 33 in 

 number, of which all but 2 are in the Collection. 



120 species of HerocUones have been described, only 4 of M'hich 

 are wanting in the Museum cabinets. 



28 types belonging to these two groups are also recorded. 



