IV PREFACE. 



Synopses of them, giving short characters of each species which 

 had come under my examination or appeared founded on reason- 

 able evidence, and placing the uiirecognizable and doubtful spe- 

 cies in an Appendix. Such was the method in which I treated 

 the Tanagrid(JE, the Galbulidce, the Bucconida, the Fonnicariida, 

 the Turdida, and several other groups of American origin, as will 

 be seen by reference to the articles on these families of birds, 

 published mostly in the * Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society. 

 My idea was some day to have united all these stray papers 

 together, and, after filling up the gaps and thoroughly revising 

 the whole, to re-issue it in the form of a General Synopsis of 

 American Ornithology. The Delegates of the Press of the 

 University of Oxford had liberally undertaken to publish this 

 work for me. Within these last few years, however, other 

 occupations have so greatly increased upon me that I found it 

 would be hopeless for me to expect to complete the task I had 

 assigned myself within a limited period. To make anything 

 like a perfect work of this kind, it would be necessary not only 

 to examine a large series of type- specimens scattered broadcast 

 amongst the Museums of Europe and America, but also to 

 collate their characters with the descriptions published in 

 numerous works, journals, and periodicals which relate to the 

 Natural Sciences. With regard, however, to the specimens 

 in my own collection, the task appeared much easier. These 

 were constantly near me, and always at hand to be worked 

 at in any spare moment. And as the series which I had 

 collected was, as regards many natural groups to which I had 

 paid special attention, very perfect, I iiad some hopes that a 

 well-arranged catalogue even of these objects, embracing, as it 

 would, the results arrived at in many of my former scattered 

 papers, would not be altogether without value. But I should 

 hardly have succeeded in accomplishing even this much less 



