x INTRODUCTION. 
and the Transvaal, founded upon the collections made by that excellent 
collector, Mr. Thomas Ayres. It is difficult to put too high an esti- 
mate upon the field work which the last-named naturalist has done 
during the last five-and-twenty years. On changing his residence 
to the Transvaal, he continued his natural history labours in that 
State, and has published many interesting essays on its ornithology. 
It is indeed to be hoped that either Mr. Gurney or Mr. Ayres 
himself will gather together these scattered memoirs, and give them 
to us ere long in a connected form. The corrections in nomen- 
clature have been somewhat numerous, and we fear that some of 
them have escaped our eyes, scattered as they are through many 
volumes of the Ibis. 
Our knowledge of the ornithology of Natal has also been increased 
by Captain Shelley in his paper in the Jbis for 1875, and 
excellent lists of the birds met with by Mr. T. E. Buckley during 
his journey to the Matabele country in 1873, as well as by 
Mr. Barratt on his excursions between Bloemfontein and the 
Lydenburg Gold-fields have been given in the pages of the Ibis. 
A very important work was achieved by the late Mr. Frank Oates 
on his journey to the Zambesi, and a full list of his collection 
was given by ourselves as an Appendix to his posthumous work, 
“Matabele Land and the Victoria Falls,” edited by his brother, 
Mr. C. G. Oates. In the pages of the latter work frequent 
mention is made of the name of Dr. F. Bradshaw, a zealous collector, 
who resided for some years in the Makalaka country and the 
Zambesi region, but whose large collections were unfortunately 
dispersed before any connected account had been taken of them. 
Some few specimens were secured by the South African Museum ; 
others passed into our charge at the British Museum ; whilst a large 
number are in the collection of Captain Shelley. 
Dr. Bradshaw has for some time held an appointment as Surgeon 
to the Northern Border Police, and he has fayoured us with a list 
