vl PREFACE 
fication, Geographical Distribution, and Migration, and a “ Ter- 
minology ” of the subject. 
In accordance with the scheme of the Series generally, the 
order followed runs from the lowest forms and the Ratite Birds 
upwards; the Carinate Birds being divided, after Dr. Gadow’s 
plan, into two Brigades or main sections, and these again into 
Legions, Orders, and so forth. It should, however, be under- 
stood that the Species of each Genus are often merely placed in 
the most convenient order; and that, where a geographical range 
is given, it does not follow that it is unbroken from end to end. 
In descriptions of colour, the names used for tints in the 
British Museum Catalogue of Birds have been commonly 
adopted, or for British species those in Mr. Howard Saunders’ 
Manual of British Birds. 
Various subjects of a highly technical, or at least of a special 
character, have purposely been avoided in the main, as unfitted 
to the scope of the work; such are, Variation and Hybrids, 
with their accompaniments of Dimorphism, Dichromatism, and 
the like; Myology; Mechanism of Flight and the supposed Lines 
of Flight on Migration; the Classifications of Linnzus and the 
older writers; and the Strickland Code of Ornithological Nomen- 
elature. For these Professor Newton’s Dictionary of Birds, and 
especially the Introduction to it, may be consulted; besides a 
multitude of other works. 
The woodcuts have been chiefly supphed by Mr. G. E. Lodge; 
but a few illustrations have been utilized from other sources. 
The author does not hold himself responsible for the fact of 
the Family names being in Roman in place of Italic type, nor 
for the dissociation of the vowels in the diphthongs; in these 
minor points he personally differs from the writers of the former 
volumes, though he agrees with the wish of his Editors for 
uniformity. 
