INTRODUCTION. 



TTTE have attempted to provide a handy book of reference to the known 

 facts concerning Australian birds for the use of students, and to this 

 end have given a complete primary synonymy, with reference to the coloured 

 plates furnished in Gould's and Mathews's Birds of Australia, the standard 

 works on the subject. The present work is entirely based upon Mathews's 

 work, in which will be found complete accounts, as far as recorded, of the life- 

 histories and economics, with full discussion of all nomenclatural problems, 

 dissertations on the phylogeny of the groups and detailed synonymy. Any 

 item not fully understood in the present essay will be found elaborately 

 explained in that place. We have extracted the detailed descriptions of the 

 plumages from the same work, but have supplemented them whenever oppor- 

 tunity has been afforded by the receipt of new material, and have made 

 reference to literature recently published for additional matter. With regard 

 to the description of nests and eggs we have purposely restricted these to 

 the smallest items possible, as Australians have already two magnificent 

 works on this subject, viz., those of Campbell and North. 



In his List of the Birds of Australia Mathews gave a resume of the workers 

 on the subject, and, consequently, we have not referred to that item here. 



We have treated the Ornis under binomial headings, recording the sub- 

 species differentiated in one item. This is somewhat different from general 

 usage, but we believe it to be the most useful method of displaying subspecies, 

 whether these be considered by the professional ornithologist or by the amateur 

 field worker, and it is to this latter class we hope this book will appeal. We 

 add a few notes under the headings Nomenclature, Classification and Zoogeo- 

 graphical Distribution, which should be of assistance to students, 



I. NOMENCLATURE, 



This subject has long been a controversial one through the absolute 

 carelessness of " authoritative " writers, whose action has misled those ignorant 

 of the facts into belief of accuracy, whereas superficiality was most obvious 

 to the critic. Moreover, such workers, when easy opportunity was afforded, 

 made much stir about the changing of a single name, conceiving ostrich-like 

 to hide their omissions by the pillorying of such an instance. It is the pride 

 of the present writers that the reduction of this subject to its present status 

 of comparative insignificance is due to their exertions, and that succeeding 

 workers will be able to deal with the scientific side of ornithology without 

 much trouble from this factor. The International Laws are now accepted 

 by all workers, so that easy determination of the correct name to be used is 



