vi BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



indicates that the species treated here are of the 

 Plata country a district of Argentina, Furthermore, 

 it gives the book its proper place as a companion 

 work to The Naturalist in La Plata. That book, also 

 now old in years, has won a permanent place in the 

 Natural History libraries, and treats of all forms of 

 life observed by me; but as it was written after 

 Argentine Ornithology, I kept bird subjects out of 

 it as far as possible, so that the two works should 

 not overlap, I may add that Argentine Ornithology 

 was issued in a limited edition, and that copies are 

 not now obtainable. 



One would imagine that during the long thirty 

 years which have elapsed since these little bird bio- 

 graphies were first issued, other books on the same 

 subject would have seen the light. For since my 

 time many workers in this same field have appeared, 

 Natural History Societies have been formed, and one 

 among them, exclusively a bird-lovers* association, 

 issues a periodical founded on the Ibis pattern, and 

 entitled El Hornero The Oven-Bird, 



That, at all events, is what I supposed. But I 

 hear that it has not been so : naturalists out there 

 have been saying that my book of 1889 and that of 

 Azara, composed a century earlier The Birds of 

 Paraguay and the River Plate are the only works 

 yet published which treat of the life habits of the 

 birds in that region. 



This, I take it, is a good and sufficient reason for 

 the re-issue of so old a work. The lives of birds is 

 a subject of perennial interest to a large and an 



