2 PEELIMINAET OBSEEVATIONS. 



very limited. Lesson, in his General Index, 

 enumerates only one hundred and ten species, 

 and of these some are spurious. In 1824, Mr 

 Bullock (in his work entitled " Six Months in 

 Mexico") states that only one hundred species 

 were in his collection, but that every day added 

 to the number. 



The cabinet of the late Mr. George Loddige 

 contains nearly two hundred species, and was 

 heretofore the first in Europe. This gentleman 

 enjoyed peculiar advantages for the formation of 

 a collection of these birds, through the agency 

 of employes in those regions of the New World, 

 where the flowers and the birds strive to outvie 

 each other in beauty and singularity. 



The collection of Mr. Gould (1852) contains, 

 as we have said, three hundred species, and be- 

 fore the expiration of a twelvemonth, will, in 

 consequence of the energetic measures taken by 

 this celebrated ornithologist, be surprisingly in- 

 creased by novel additions. "We say novel addi- 

 tions, and we are justified in saying so, for if 

 we look back over the last seven or eight years, 

 with reference to the number of new species 

 added within that time to Lesson's list, we have 

 every right to predict, now that increased and 

 enthusiastic attention is directed to this fasci- 

 nating group, that many, many more species 

 which have hitherto escaped observation, will 

 be continually added to the cabinets of Europe, 

 especially to that great cabinet which is now at- 



