PREFACE. 
eed 
Ir is always gratifying to find the opinions one has indepen- 
dently formed, and steadfastly adhered to, in the face of the 
nearly general dissent of our contemporaries, gradually accepted 
and adopted as established truths by all those best qualified 
to judge. 
It is particularly gratifying to the Editor (who was not a 
little abused for starting Srray Fratuers,) to find now ere 
the completion of the 4th Vol. an almost universal concurrence 
as to the necessity of a special ornithological journal for 
India, and a pretty general admission that despite his own 
shortcomings, his journal has, thanks to the kind and cordial 
support of brother ornithologists, rendered important services 
to Indian Ornithology. 
As regards his own shortcomings, the Editor feels that on 
the present occasion, he has more cause even than in former 
years to deprecate harsh judgments. : 
From circumstances entirely beyond his own control, the 
Editor has been this year compelled to bring out the whole 
volume in only two numbers, the first of which appeared in 
January, and the 2nd of which will appear in December. 
This he feels is, in truth, a very irregular manner of doing 
business ; all he can plead in mitigation of sentence is that as a 
fully occupied Government servant, liable to be sent here, there, 
and everywhere as the exigencies of the public service may de- 
mand, and often unable for whole months at a time to look at, or 
give a thought to, birds, he does his best and can do no more. 
No one else can at present be found able and willing to under- - 
take the task; the mere preparation of contributions for the 
press, correction of proofs, and compilation of indices, involves, 
in India, an amount of personal labour, of which European Editors 
have no conception, and when this is coupled with the facts 
that the press is at Calcutta, that the Editor may, as has hap- 
pened this year, send a manuscript from Simla, receive a first 
proof there, a second proof at Jeypoor, and pass the final proof 
for press at Bombay, and that, again, as has happened this year, 
large packets of manuscript and proofs disappear altogether in 
the Post Office, never turning up at the stations where the 
Editor expected to meet them, indulgent readers will, it is 
hoped, make allowances for the irregularity with which the journal 
appears,—an irregularity, be it noted, which was foretold in the 
opening notice on the cover of the very first number. 
Au reste the Editor has only to urge once more the great 
importance of carefully prepared local Avi-faunas and to ex- 
press a hope that he may soon be favoured with some at least 
of those which have been now long promised. 
ALLAN HUME, 
November 25th, 1876. 
