PREFACE. XIU 



of October, during the Annual Meeting of tlie British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science. The 

 few survivors of those who were present can hardly 

 forget the spirit with whicli he entered into the pro- 

 ceedings of the 'Thorough' dinner at the Red Lion 

 Hotel in this town, under the presidency of Professor 

 Huxley, with Professor Kingsley as Vice-Chairman. It 

 would be ont of place here to enter into details ; but 

 the dinner was to celebrate the victory won, after a 

 hard-fought struggle, by the adherents of the principle 

 of Evolution over their opponents, who had manfully 

 disputed what now proved to be an untenable 

 position. 



At the meeting of the British Ornithologists' Union 

 held in London on the 20th of May, 1864, Lord 

 LiLFORD not only proposed that a New Series of 

 ' The Ibis ' should be begun in the following year, but 

 undertook, on its being continued in its existing form, 

 to defray the cost of a plate in each number — a promise 

 that "was more than literally fulfilled for the rest of his 

 life ; and to that journal for 1865 he contributed an 

 excellent sketch of the ornithology of Spain, as observed 

 by himself in two visits, the first (as before mentioned) 

 in 1856, and the second in the early spring in 1864, 

 which confirmed the favourable impression he had 

 already formed as to the country and all that belonged 

 to it. To Englishmen Spanish Ornithology was a field 

 almost untrodden, and its fertility came to many as a 

 surprise ; yet on the former of these visits only a few 



