A ROUGH TENTATIVE LIST OF THE BIRDS OF INDIA. 3 
I have not referred to passages merely giving an account 
of breeding habits or nidification, because all these will be 
easiest referred to in the new edition of Nests anp Eas, now 
soon I hope to issue. 
Of course the bird will not always be found described under 
the particular name now adopted in the list. Thus, taking 
91bis.—Ptyonoprogne obsoleta, Cab.—S. F., I, 1, 417. Turn- 
ing to the first reference, the reader will find a Ptyonoprogne 
pallida, Hume, described, but a glance at page 417 (the second 
reference) will show that the two are identical. Thus too in 
the case of a vast number of species on turning up the reference 
to Dr. Jerdon’s work, the reader will find there, under the 
same number, a bird described under a different name to that 
used in this list. The conclusion to be drawn in all such 
cases is, that I believe that the bird described by Jerdon, in the 
passage and at the number indicated, should stand under the 
name given in the list, and not under that adopted by Jerdon. 
A full and complete description will not, in some cases, be 
found at any one of the places referred to, but any one who 
reads carefully all the several passages to which references are 
given, will generally have little difficulty in identifying the 
species, since even where no detailed description has been fur- 
nished, the characteristic points of difference between the 
species in question and other nearly allied and more common 
ones which dave been fully described, will have been clearly 
set forth. 
It will not unfrequently happen, that on looking up all the 
references, contradictory opinions will be found to have’been 
expressed. Where these are by the same authority, the author’s 
latest utterances must be accepted as his more mature opinion, 
but where they are by different authors, the reader must 
accept the point as an unsettled one, and do what he can 
towards elucidating it. 
This list includes the Birds of the whole Empire, except 
Beluchistan, Afghanistan, Badakshan, Wakhan, &c., on the 
North-West; the Maldives, the Mergui Archipelago, and the 
western half of the Malay Peninsula. 
I have for long had in hand a complete list including the 
birds of these also, (so far as they are known to me,) with the 
full specific synonymy of each species, together with its distribu- 
tion within the Empire as a whole. 
The first draft of this, however, which is a work involving 
great labour, can hardly appear in less than two or three years, 
and in the meantime this list will, I am assured, be very useful 
to my numerous coadjutors, will enable them, I hope, to identify. 
any species they get, will show the names that, so far as I have 
