IV PREFACE. 



work on the Game Birds of India by Mr. Gates, the author 

 of the first two volumes of Birds in the present series, has 

 just appeared, too late for references to it to be inserted in 

 the appendix to this volume. 



The classification adopted for the Birds was explained in 

 the Preface to the third volume. The sequence of the 

 Orders is to some extent a matter of convenience, it would 

 have been equally correct to have commenced this volume 

 with the Steganopodes and Herodiones, as the nearest allies 

 of the Accipitrine birds described at the end of the last. 

 At the same time, it is natural to place the Pigeons as near 

 to the Cuckoos and Owls as possible. The arrangement here 

 employed has been preferred chiefly because it more nearly 

 resembles Jerdon's, with whose work Indian naturalists have 

 now been familiar for more than thirty years, and is there- 

 fore likely to be found more convenient. 



The keys to genera and species in this and other volumes 

 are intended solely to assist in the determination of specimens, 

 and do not necessarily depend on the characters of the greatest 

 importance, nor do the generic keys always serve for species 

 not found in India. 



The English names used by Jerdon have been retained, 

 except when they differ from those commonly used in 

 England, or when they have been found to be no longer 

 appropriate, owing either to improved knowledge of the 

 bird's affinities or to the discovery of additional species. 

 Thus such names as Shell Ibis and Pelican Ibis cannot be 

 retained now that we find that the birds to which they are 

 applied are not Ibises but Storks; and it is a mistake to employ 

 any longer the term of " The Golden Plover " for Charadrivs 

 fulvuSj when we know that the true Golden Plover of Europe, 

 C. pluvialis, is sometimes a visitor to India. 



The number of Indian birds regarded as distinct species 

 in the present work, including the nine added in the 



