and derived a knowledge of various others reduced in its pages, the 

 majority of which I have therefore been only able to include in the 

 sequel of this preface. 



During the long time occupied by the printing of a Catalogue of 

 such extent, in India, it also could hardly be, in the present state of 

 Ornithological nomenclature, but that numerous additions and recti- 

 fications of synonymes would become known too late for insertion in 

 their proper places. A considerable accumulation of these is given in 

 one of the Appendices. 



In bringing together the different synonymes of species, I have, in 

 general, avoided giving publicity to mere 3IS. names, which would 

 have considerably swelled the lists to little purpose ; and I have also 

 deemed it unnecessary to quote the succession of generic titles under 

 which various authors have arranged the same species, while retaining 

 a prior specific appellation, the authority for which is cited. The main 

 object of such a catalogue is practical utility to the student ; and no 

 labour has been spared to establish the nomenclature and synonymy, 

 so far as my opportunities for doing so permitted, and also to furnish 

 such references as should tend to prevent a further multiplication of 

 useless names. 



With more books of reference, as especially the Planches Coloriees 

 of M. Temminck (which I have never seen), and one or two others 

 that might be mentioned, there is little doubt that sundry additional 

 synonymes might have been resolved; but the only copy of the valu- 

 able work named in Calcutta, and doubtless iu all India, has unfor- 

 tunately been to me inaccessible. 



Notwithstanding such disadvantages, however, I flatter myself that 

 considerable progress will be deemed to have been made towards fixing 

 the nomenclature of Indian birds, so recently almost in a state of 

 chaos, until the labours of Jerdon, G. R. Gray, and others contributed 

 largely to reduce the manifold emplois, and so to arrive at the present 

 more exact knowledge of species, — upon which might now be founded 

 some approximation to a satisfactory Ornithological fauna of the 

 country, which is a desideratum to which the present Catalogue with 

 its Appendices is adapted to serve as a basis. 



The latest addenda to these Appendices I now introduce, after 

 another interval of several months. 



