PREFACE. 



The last three numbers of this Journal (including 

 the Supplement) of the past year, and the first two 

 of the present, were edited by Mr. P. L. Sciater 

 whilst I was absent from England for fourteen 

 months. In relieving me of a duty that I must 

 otherwise have relinquished, and adding it to his 

 own manifold engagements, Mr. Sciater has evinced, 

 were such token necessary, his unflagging zeal for 

 the welfare of ' The Ibis,' for which the Members of 

 the British Ornithologists' Union, as well as myself, 

 owe him our best thanks. 



It will be observed that the " Index to the Orni- 

 thological Literature," appended to each of the pre- 

 vious volumes of the Third Series of this Journal, 

 has been omitted in the present. This has been done 

 at the generally expressed wish of the Members of 

 the Union. The change, I regret to say, involves 

 a considerable hiatus in the record of current orni- 

 tholoo^ical literature between the commencement of 

 1873 and the present time, which I have not seen 

 my way to avoid. If what is past cannot be reme- 

 died, it remains to me in future numbers to render 

 as complete as possible in some other form this very 

 essential portion of our Journal. 



OSBERT SALVIN, 



Edito}\ 



15 Tenterden Street, Hanover Square. 

 September 1874, 



