GARDEN AND AVIARY BIRDS 
OF INDIA. 
CHAPTER I. 
CLASSIFICATION AND Books oF REFERENCE. 
For the purposes of the present work, I shall not 
usually discuss the various orders of birds, but shall 
confine myself to families, as the limits of these are 
very well defined and generally agreed upon by orni- 
thologists, while with regard to the orders hardly any 
two books agree. The scientific names employed will 
be those of the bird volumes of the Fauna of British 
India for Indian Birds; while for the foreign species 
which I shall have occasion to deal with I shall use 
those of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds. Names 
of birds not occurring wild in the Indian Empire are 
marked with an asterisk. 
And here a few words on the subject of the classifica- 
tory terms employed by naturalists may not be out of 
place, as they are not always understood by beginners. 
A species is a collection of individuals which reproduce 
others like themselves. Thus, over most of India we 
F, GAB | 
