vi INTRODUCTION. 
new genus, is now in the Tring Museum, and has been described as 
Uratelornis chimera by the Hon. Walter Rothschild in his ‘ Novitates 
Zoologice,’ Dec. 1895; and I may here thank him and Mr. Hartert for 
having given me particulars of this fine novelty in time for publication 
in the present volume. ‘The other new species referred to is a splendid 
Oriole sent home by my friend Sir H. H. Johnston, K.C.B., H.B.M. 
Commissioner of Nyasaland, who has added considerably, in recent years, 
to our knowledge of both the fauna and flora of this hitherto unexplored 
country. This bird has been named Oriolus chlorocephalus, after one 
of its many striking characters, and will be figured in ‘The Ibis’ for 
April 1896. 
The present work, which I shall call the “ Birds of Africa,” will, 
I hope, consist of a series of handy volumes complete in themselves. 
Thus the first will comprise a list of all the species known to occur in 
the Ethiopian Region, up to the time of publication, with a reference 
to a good figure and to the page and volume of the Catalogue of the 
British Museum where the species is mentioned, while their geographical 
distribution will be indicated by the initial letters of the subregions 
in which they are known to occur. This volume may in fact be called 
a “ Nomenclator Avium A‘thiopicarum.” 
Vol. If. will be devoted to the classification and diagnosis of all 
the species, and, I trust, will be an acceptable work to the Field 
Naturalist, for whom many of the notes will be specially intended. The 
preparation of this volume has involved the adoption of a classification 
in some few details differing from those of my predecessors; but it may 
be hoped that Vol. II. will fully explain my reasons for following the order 
adopted in this first volume. 
The Ethiopian Region, as I understand it, comprises Africa and the 
surrounding seas south of the Tropic of Cancer, including the islands 
of Cape Verde and St. Helena in the Atlantic, Crozet and Marion 
Islands in the Southern Ocean, and eastward as far as Rodriguez Island 
in 65° E. long., including Madagascar, the Seychelles Archipelago, the 
island of Socotra, and the whole of the Red Sea. 
Those countries bordering on the Mediterranean and eastward of the 
Red Sea are considered as not belonging to the Ethiopian Region. 
