PREFACE. Vll 



ornithology, — John Cordeaux, John Gatcombe, J. H, 

 Gurney, jun., J. A. Harvie-Brown, H. Seebohm, and Cecil 

 Smith ; also to Lieut.-Col. E. A. Butler, Messrs. T. E. 

 Buckley, A. Chapman, W. Eagle Clarke, T. Duckworth, 

 E. Hargitt, F. S. Mitchell, A. G. More, T. H. Nelson, J. C. 

 Mansel-Pleydell, Henry Stevenson, R. J. Ussher, Robert 

 Warren, John Young, and others too numerous for mention. 

 The changes made in the systematic arrangement are 

 believed to be the fewest consistent with the present state 

 of our knowledge. It was obviously impossible that the 

 Herons &c, should continue to split the Order Limicolce by 

 occupying their former place midway between the Plovers 

 and the Curlews. It was equally clear that, according to 

 modern views, the Gavice (Terns and Gulls) must follow 

 the Limicolce, to which, indeed, they are so closely related 

 that it is doubtful whether they should not be comprised in 

 the same Order. Opinions not being unanimous upon the 

 relative positions of the Petrels, the Auks, the Divers, and 

 the Grebes, I have subordinated my own views to the 

 previous arrangement. The Herons (Herodiones) and the 

 Cormorants (Steganopodes), had, of course, to be allocated 

 in a proximity the scheme of which had already been dis- 

 arranged by the commencement of the work with the 

 Accipitres. Under these exceptional circumstances the last 

 Order is necessarily that of the Anseres ; nor is it altogether 

 undesirable that it should be so, inasmuch as in the ossifica- 

 tion of the sternum the normal members of that group 

 show some resemblance to the RatiUe, a sub-class which is 

 generally, although not universally, allowed to be lower than 

 the CarinatcB, 



Assuming that, according to the original scheme of the 

 work, a species is allowed to have a claim to be considered 

 * British ' when a single authenticated example is proved to 

 have been obtained in our islands without suspicion of arti- 

 ficial introduction, it would seem that the following species 

 which have not been figured or described in detail, have 

 some right to be enumerated in the British list ; but certain 



