PEEFACE 



This Dictionary has taken me far longer to complete than, 

 when I began it, I had any notion that it would. Yet I do not 

 regret the delay, since it has enabled me, though very briefly, 

 to shew (Introduction, page 10 8, note) that the latest investi- 

 gation has proved the newly-announced group Stereornithes, 

 which seemed at first so important, to have no more claim to 

 recognition than had that known as Odontornithes. 



The articles by Dr. G-adow have fully sustained the 

 expectation of them expressed in my initial Note. Eead with 

 the aid of the cross-references they contain and the Index that 

 follows, they cannot fail to place the enquirer, be he beginner 

 or advanced student, in a position he could not hope to occupy 

 through the study of any other English book, and, what is 

 better, a position whence he may extend his researches in many 

 directions. 



It has been my object throughout to compress into the 

 smallest compass the information intended to be conveyed. 

 It would have been easier to double the bulk of the work, 

 but the limits of a single volume are already strained, and to 

 extend it to a second would in several ways destroy such 

 usefulness as it may possess. Still I cannot but regret having 

 to omiu any special notice of several interesting subjects which 

 bear more or less directly upon Ornithology. To name only a 

 few of them — Insulation, Isomorphism, Reversion and the 



