X PREFACE. 



Gould, Reichenbach, Heine, Mulsant, and worked at by Von 

 Berlepsch, Boucard, and others for years, to say nothing of 

 Mr. Salvin's own previous study of the Family. Mr. Hargitt's 

 four new genera of Woodpeckers were reserved for publication 

 in the "Catalogue," and so were Mr. Ogilvie-Grant's few 

 generic names of Hornbills and Game-Birds, but all these 

 families had been monographed, some of them more than 

 once, before the authors began their "Catalogues," and there- 

 fore the chance of there being any genera which had escaped 

 notice by previous writers was extremely small, and the same 

 may be said of the volumes written by Captain Shelley and 

 Count Salvadori. 



On the other hand, fair play would have demanded an 

 acknowledgment of the fact that the groups of birds which 

 fell to my lot in the "Catalogue" had been practically un- 

 worked before, and it is not in the least surprising that, in 

 monographing such difficult families as BabbHng-Thrushes, 

 Finches, Starlings, &c., a close study should discover generic 

 differences, while many of the larger birds, such as Bustards 

 and Cranes, had not been monographed for many years 

 before I did them in the " Catalogue." My views are, I 

 dare say, not those of the older school of ornithologists, any 

 more than are those of Dr. Reichenow and other " German 

 friends," or those of Mr. Ridgway and Dr. Stejneger, the 

 " American cousins," who are evidently regarded by Canon 

 Tristram as the cause of my backslidings ! 



The whole question appears to me to be a very simple one. 

 Canon Tristram evidently does not like what he calls the 

 " new-fangled " ideas of some of the younger school of 

 ornithologists, because they were not in vogue in his younger 

 days, but the collections which are now in the cabinets of the 

 British Museum provide a completeness of material with 

 which our forefathers were totally unacquainted. It was 



