

to 



PREFACE. 



Although the present volume is not quite so bulky 

 as that of 1891, it will be evident that the Editor of 

 ' The Ibis ' has been vs^ell supplied with communica- 

 tions during the past year, and that many of them 

 are of o^reat value. 



o 



The most noticeable event in the progress of Orni- 

 thology in 1892 is, in the Editor's opinion, the com- 

 pletion of the first twenty volumes of the ' Catalogue 

 of Birds.' For the plan and execution of this great 

 work we cannot be too thankful to Dr. Giinther and 

 his efficient Assistants in the British Museum. When 

 the remaining volumes, on which several busy heads 

 are already at work, are finished, the result will mark 

 an epoch in our Science, only to be compared to the 

 completion of Gray and Mitchell's ' Genera of Birds ' 

 in 1849. But that work, it must be recollected, 

 contained only a list of the names of species then 

 known, whereas the ' Catalogue ' will give us dia- 

 gnostic characters and descriptions of every species 

 discovered up to the date of publication. 



A second important event in our Science that has 

 recently occurred is the discovery of a series of fossil 



