STRAY FEATHERS. 



Vol- VIL] MARCH 1879- [No- 6- 



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The first part of Captain Legge's splendid Monograph of the 

 Birds of Ceylon has recently appeared. 



Two other parts will complete the work, and I can only say- 

 that, if the remaining- portions are up to the standard of the 

 present instalment, the work as a whole will equal, if not sur- 

 pass, any other work of the kind that has ever appeared. 



The paper is excellent, the printing first class, and as regards 

 the plates, they are amongst the very best that that real, though 

 now-a-days unutilizable genius, Mr. Keulemans has ever 

 produced. 



The accessories, therefore, are all that can be desired — nothing 

 like them can be produced in India — and even at a first glance 

 the thick volume before us must extort admiration. 



A more careful examination, moreover, of tbe work will onlj 

 deepen and intensify the pleasure which every Indian ornitho- 

 logist must feel on first becoming acquainted with it. 



Captain Legge has thoroughly worked up his subject, and to 

 eight years of labour amongst the birds he deals with, in their 

 native wilds, has added two years of study in the libraries and 

 collections of England. 



Nothing can exceed the loving pains which he has bestowed 

 in elaborating the life histories of his feathered friends ; and, 

 while scarcely anything of importance that was on record has 

 escaped him, he has added, from his own personal experiences 

 and researches, much that is new and of great interest. 



Although, of course, only birds that occur in Ceylon will be 

 included, this work will embrace, I should suppose, over 350 

 species, of Avhich more than 300 are common to other parts of 

 India, so that it is not only ornithologists in Ceylon, but of 

 all India, who are interested in and should support Captain 

 Legge. He has as yet, he tells me, scarcely any Indian sub- 

 scribers, but I cannot doubt that, when the nature anu really 

 exceptional merits of this History of the Birds of Ceylon 



