obtain further information as to the localities in which South 

 African birds may be found ; but wliat I have at my dis- 

 posal is, as yet, exceedingly incomplete. Of course we have 

 old books, like Le Vaillant's, which is extremely interesting in 

 itself ; but when we realize that the Crowned Pigeon of New 

 Guinea is in it included in the list of South African birds, 

 we are reminded that we have to take the information given 

 in works such as these with a certain amount of discretion. 

 The one-time standard work of Layard and Shnrpe gives 

 much more concise and trustworthy information ; but being 

 printed between the years 1875-1884, it is now out of date 

 and contains no information about the very large amount of 

 work carried out since that time. We now, however, have 

 Shelley's beautiful book on the ' Birds of Africa ' and 

 Reichenow's standard work on ' Die ViJgel Africas.' The 

 former is not yet complete. Both works deal with the whole 

 of Africa, but owing to their large size and considerable cost 

 they are not within the reach of or useful to all, especially 

 those persons who do not study ornithology as a speciality, 

 but have taken it up as a most charming hobby for their spare 

 time. 



Lastly comes the valuable work of Dr. Stark, so ably 

 continued and finished by our esteemed friend and late 

 President, W. L. Sclater. This book should be in the hands 

 of all of you, and it gives a good description of the birds 

 found in the Southern part of this Continent. It suffers, 

 however, from one very important omission, and it shares 

 this fault with most, if not all, the lists of birds published by 

 the different museums in South Africa : I refer to the 

 omission of dates. It concerns the student of ornithology 

 very little to know that a certain specimen has been purchased 

 by or presented to a particular museum ; but it matters very 

 much to learn in what month this specimen was secured. 

 You will notice. Gentlemen, that the point to which I refer 

 especially is the migration of birds within the limits of South 

 Africa. In order to understand our ornithological Fauna, it 

 is absolutely essenti;d that we should have a clear under- 

 standing about the migration of our birds. Very little is 



