NOTE. 



A FEW words seem necessary to explain my small share 

 in bringing this work to a conclusion. 



When, on the lamented death of its originator, this 

 task was entrusted to me, I found that nearly the whole 

 of the Plates of the birds remaining to be figured were 

 in a more or less advanced state of preparation, some 

 finished, some with the lithographers, and on some the 

 artist was enffao-ed. Moreover a list of the fio;ures of 

 species as yet unissued was in the Publisher's hands, 

 but no portion of the letterpress had been written. To 

 this list, which seems to have been mainly derived from 

 Col. Irby's ' Key List of British Birds,' I have adhered 

 very closely, concluding that the birds not named in it 

 were not intended to be figured. The only additions I 

 have ventured to make are the two Willow- Warblers 

 Phi/Uoscopus viridanus and P. proregulus, which ap- 

 peared in England in the autumn of 1S96, and Pro- 

 cellaria cryptoleucura , and no bird recorded since the 

 close of 1896 has been added. 



Regarding the letterpress, it was obvious that to 

 attempt to compile any notes of the species on the 



