PREFACE. 
=—-G 
Tusk rough notes are merely intended as a sort of nucleus, 
round which future observations, (which it is hoped that they 
may somewhat tend to systematize) may, as it were, crystal- 
lize. In them, I have thrown together all the information in 
regard to Indian Oology and Ornithology, supplementary to 
my friend Dr. Jerdon’s excellent work, that I have happened to 
collect. 
Much of this information is original, the result of recent 
observations of my own, or of the different gentlemen who have 
kindly communicated it, and whose names are duly recorded 
in loco, but much has also been extracted from the pages of the 
Ibis, Yarrell, Bree, Gould, &c., works with which every orni- 
thologist ought to be acquainted, but which no working Indian 
field naturalist, (for whose use these notes are chiefly designed), 
can possibly carry about with him. 
My object in now printing these avowedly miserably imper- 
fect and disjointed scraps is, primarily, to enable my numer- 
ous coadjutors, in different parts of India, to ascertain what 
I have already on record, and what portion of the information 
they may happen to possess, will help to fill in many of the 
woeful blanks remaining in that record. 
Hereafter* I propose, (D. V.,) torepublish thege notes in a 
revised form, in which I shall embody all the additional in- 
* T have not, in the present notes, offered any general remarks on oology, 
nor attempted, as I shall hereafter do, to show how peculiarities, both in the 
eggs themselves and in nest architecture, are reproduced, not only in repre- 
sentative species, but even in representative genera, in distant portions of 
the globe. I reserve these subjects for a future edition, when, with ampler 
ene before me, I may hope to generalize both more usefully and more 
salely, , 
