VI PREFACE. 



The most important part of the present collection, however, 

 was got together between 1838 and 1853; and the names of 

 most of the best known ornithologists and collectors of that 

 period appear on the labels as contributors to it, among whom 

 Andersson, Baird, Blyth, Boys, Brandt, Gosse, Hodgson, Jerdon, 

 Petherick, may be specially mentioned. 



The whole number of skins is 6006. About one-third of 

 which, including those obtained by STRICKLAND himself, and 

 by his brother Algernon, may be assigned to the collectors 

 themselves. The rest, including the specimens bought from 

 Nathaniel Constantine Strickland in 1838 and 1850, were 

 generally obtained from dealers in England and Scotland. 



Though the classification of Birds was a subject that, as his 

 writings shew, constantly occupied STRICKLAND'S attention, it 

 is clear that up to the time of his sudden death his opinions on 

 few if any points were matured. It is true that amongst his 

 papers he left in MS. a comparatively complete catalogue of 

 birds, extracted from the literature of ornithology, in which the 

 various synonyms, and range of each species, as far as was then 

 known, are elaborately set down. Each species is treated of on 

 a separate slip of paper, and these slips are arranged in a certain 

 order ; but it is obvious on examination that the arrangement 

 was dictated merely by convenience and cannot be taken to 

 indicate any definite opinions. 



This arrangement might have been used as STRICKLAND'S 

 system of classification, but a moment's reflection shews the 

 impropriety of publishing such a system as the one finally 

 adopted by its author; for by doing so it is evident that 

 STRICKLAND would be supposed to have held views on many 

 questions concerning which he never publicly expressed him- 

 self. I therefore had to seek another classification, and I natu- 

 rally inclined to follow that used in the Nomenclator Avium 

 Neotropicalium, published in 1873 by Mr Sclater and myself, 

 which has as its basis the system of Huxley. Into this classi- 

 fication, which treats of South American birds ouly, I have 



