INTRODUCTION, 



The object of the present work is chiefly to supply a want, which 

 I myself, and probably others, have felt, in the absence of any English 

 publication which treats systematically of the birds to be found in 

 the Eegency of Tunis. It is true that during the past few years our 

 brother-ornithologists in Germany have not been idle in this part of 

 North-west Africa, but, on the contrary, have contributed valuable 

 i nformation to our knowledge of the Tunisian Avifauna, and to Prof. 

 A. Koenig of Bonn and the late Carlo Freiherr von Erlanger of 

 Ingelheim, we are indebted for highly interesting accounts of their 

 researches in the Eegency, which have been published in the Journal 

 i'lir Ornithologie. 



I take this opportunity of publicly expressing my deep regret at 

 the premature death of Carlo v. Erlanger, whom I had the privilege 

 of knowing personally, and whose many good qualities I was thus 

 the better able to appreciate. As an ardent naturalist and careful 

 observer he was perhaps unsurpassed, and the promise he gave of 

 good work in the future was great. His loss is a serious one to 

 Science in general, and to our much-loved branch of Ornithology 

 in particular. 



With the exception of the publications mentioned above, and 

 some minor ones, among which may be included a series of papers 

 written by myself in the Ibis, little has been written of late years 

 on the Ornis of the Tunisian Regency, but I may observe, en passant, 

 that Algeria and Tunisia were among the first countries regarding 

 the Avifauna of which articles appeared in the Ibis, such pioneers 

 of Ornithology as Canon Tristram, Osbert Salvin and Mr. J. H. 

 Gurney junr., having each in their turn written on the subject in 

 the earlier volumes of that journal. 



Algeria having been under French rule for so many years, has 



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