80 A ROUGH TENTATIVE LIST OF THE BIRDS OF INDIA. 



been modified by a consensus of naturalists as weighty as that 

 which gave it currency. 



Clearly, if each man is to overrule the Code in whichsoever 

 particular he deems this justifiable, all advantages of a Code 

 disappear, and we fall at once into the position of our contineu* 

 tal brethren, each of whom, for the most part, does whatever 

 seemeth good in his own eyes in these matters. 



Strickland and his co-adjutors have lived and written in vain, 

 if such a change can be deemed other than deplorable, and the 

 only way to avoid this disastrous and retrograde movement is 

 for all of us to sink private views, and first adhere strictly to the 

 Code, so far as it goes ; and, secondly, combine to accept a supple- 

 mentary set of rules dealing with the more important questions 

 on which the Code is silent, and, should it be possible to secure 

 agreement in these points, modifying it in one or two respects 

 in which it's precepts are opposed to it's principles.* 



Altogether 1,788 species are enumerated, of which, as at pre- 

 sent informed, I should reject 106 ; the names of these latter I 

 have printed in italics. Of the remaining 1,682, I have doubts 

 of 74 ; and to these I have prefixed a note of interrogation. 

 My larger list contains at present 1,917 species. 



There are many entire groups, such as the Drymcecince, the 

 Muscicapina, etc., which I have never yet had time to look 

 into properly, the number of species in which I have no doubt 

 that I shall be able to reduce when 1 go into them. For the 

 present I have accepted every one's species all round, though 

 many of them seem to me to require confirmation. 



Altogether the time has not come for publishing any such 

 list. In the first place an innumerable number of detailed 

 investigations must be carried out before any one could publish 

 a really correct list of this nature ; in the second place, I 

 have not the time to make this list even as correct as existing 

 available materials would allow. 



Still, as my readers will have it, and begin to retort on me, 

 my favorite saying, his dat, qui cito dat, here it is, and I can 

 only repeat that my sole consolation in sending out such an 

 imperfect work is, the hope that with all its shortcomings, and 

 however little it may redound to my credit, it will yet prove 

 of some little use to my fellow labourers here, and aid in some 

 humble degree the progress of ornithology in India. 



Allan Hume. 



* 



genera 



g., where in violation of its fundamental law of priority, it rejects good 

 •a of Moehring, and good binomial appellations of Briinnich. 



