S6 DICTIONARY OF BIRDS 



form two volumes and issued (Brisbane: 1877) with title-pages. Many 

 notices of Australian Birds by Dr. Eamsay, Messrs. A. J. North, K. H. 

 Bennett and others are to be found in the Records of the Australian 

 Museum, the Proceedings of the Linnsean Society of New South Wales, of 

 the Royal Society of Victoria and of that of Tasmania.^ Papers by Mr. 

 Devis on the ornithology of British New Guinea have appeared in the 

 Annual Reports on that Dependency presented to the parliament of 

 Queensland, and in their original form are hardly accessible to the ordinary 

 ornithologist. 



Coming to our Indian possessions, and beginning with Ceylon, we 

 have Kelaart's Prodromus Faunse Zeylanicx (8vo, 1852), and the admirable 

 Birds of Ceylon by CoL Legge (4to, 1878-80), with coloured plates by Mr. 

 Keulemans of all the peculiar species. One can hardly name a book 

 that has been more conscientiously executed than this. In regard to 

 continental India many of the more important publications have been 

 named in the body of this work (pages 356, 357), but Blyth's Mammals 

 and Birds of Burma (8vo, 1875) ^ should be especially noticed, as well as 

 the fact that since the return of Mr. Gates to the East, the ornithological 

 part of the Fauna of British India is being continued by Mr. Blanford, 

 though Jerdon's classical work will always remain of value, notwith- 

 standing that it no longer reigns supreme as the sole comprehensive work 

 on the Grnithology of the Peninsula.^ 



In regard to South Africa there is little to be added to the works 

 mentioned (pages 347, 351, 352) ; but in 1896 Capt. Shelley brought out 

 a List of African Birds, which, it is hoped, may be the forerunner of a 

 series of volumes on Ethiopian Grnithology. It is much to be regretted 

 that of the numerous sporting books that treat of this part of the world 

 so few give any important information respecting the Birds. 



Gf special works relating to the British West Indies, Waterton's 

 well-known Wanderings has passed through several editions since its 

 first appearance in 1825, and must be mentioned here, though, strictly 

 speaking, much of the country he traversed was not British territory. 

 To Dr. Cabanis we are indebted for the ornithological results of Richard 

 Schomburgk's researches given in the third volume (pp. 662-765) of the 

 latter's Reisen im Britisch- Guiana (8vo, 1848), and then to Ldotaud's 

 Oiseaux de Vile de la Trinidad (8vo, 1866). Gf the Antilles there is to 

 be named Gosse's excellent Birds of Jamaica (12mo, 1847), together with 

 its Illustrations (sm. fol. 1849) beautifully executed by him. A nominal 



^ Dr. Ramsay has a Tabular List of Australian Birds (ed. 2, Sydney : 1888). 

 Mr. North's contributions have been chiefly on Nidification and Oology, though the 

 ornithology of the recent "Horn Expedition " has fallen to his share. Mr. Archibald 

 J. Campbell's Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds (Melbourne : 1883) deserves 

 especial mention. A convenient Manual of Australian Ornithology is still a great 

 want, and, if supplied, would undoubtedly advance the knowledge of the wonderful 

 bird-population of that country, and induce the inhabitants to take greater interest 

 in it. But the work to be well done must be by Australian hands. 



^ This is a posthumous publication, nominally forming an extra number of the 

 Journal of the Asiatic Society. 



^ A multitude of papers, some very important, on Indian Ornithology, appeared 

 in Stray Feathers, a periodical edited between 1877 and 1882 by Mr. A. 0. Hume, 

 of which the eleventh and last volume remains unfinished. 



