PREFACE. 



As a rearrangement of the Ornithological collection of the British 

 Museum is about to take place in the new and splendid gallery ap- 

 propriated by the Trustees for its reception, it is especially desirable 

 that the nomenclature to be adopted therein should receive the most 

 careful attention, and be founded on the strictest and most impartial 

 rules. To carry this intention properly into effect, it was obviously 

 essential that the person charged with the arrangement (under the 

 kind directions of J. G. Children, Esq., Keeper of the Zoological 

 Collections) should be well acquainted with all the published genera 

 which have been projiosed in this particular branch of zoology ; and 

 the various classifications given by MM. Illiger% Vieillot^, Cuvier'^, 

 Tennninck'^, Vigors^ Boie^, Ch. Bonaparte Prince of Musignano^, 

 Lesson'^, Sundevall', and Swainson*^, formed, of course, the primary 

 sources from whence his knowledge was derived. In addition to these 

 standard and more general works, he has also consulted all those 



^ Illiger's Prodromus Systematis Mammalium et Avium, 1811. 



^ Vieillot's Analyse d'uue nouvelle Ornithologie elementaire, 1816. 



* Cuvier's Regne Animal, 1817. 



'' Temminck's Manuel d'Ornithologie, precede d'une Analyse de Systeme gene- 

 ral d'Ornithologie, 1820. 



® Vigors' Arrangement of the hitherto pubUshed Genera of Birds, Zool. Journ., 

 u, 180. 



' Boie's Papers published in the Isis, of various dates. 



^ Ch. Bonaparte's Saggio di una Distrib. meth. degli Anim. vertebr., 1831. 



•" Lesson's Traite d'Ornithologie, 1831. 



' Sundevall's Ornithologiskt System in kongl. Velenskaps-academies Stockholm, 

 1836. 



^ Swainson, On the Nat. Hist, and Classification of Birds, Lardner's Cab. Cy- 

 clop., 1837. 



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