INTRODUCTION. ' ix 



Newton's admirable edition of Yarrell's 'British Birds' been 

 conniplete — or nearly so — it would undoubtedly have been 

 adopted as a guide by virtue of the position which it admittedly 

 holds as the standard work on British Ornithology. In such an 

 event practical convenience would — and rightly so — have over- 

 ruled all other considerations. But this unfortunately not being 

 the case, it became necessary to consider the present state of 

 ornithological opinion as to the classification of Birds. This has 

 been admirably summarised in the Ibis for 1880, by Dr. P. L. 

 Sclater, in a paper entitled ' Remarks on the present state of the 

 Systema Avium.' The arrangement therein promulgated — or 

 some modification of it — seems likely to meet with acceptance 

 more or less general at the hands of ornithologists, and has 

 already been adopted by Mr. H. E. Dresser in his recently-com- 

 pleted great work on the Birds of Europe. The arrangement and 

 nomenclature of Mr. Dresser's work have therefore been followed. 

 It is not within the province of a work of this character to 

 decide whether certain birds ought or ought not to be included 

 in the list, and consequently all admitted as British by Mr. 

 Dresser, or included by Mr. Wharton in his excellent little cata- 

 logue, have, with trifling exceptions, been here included. There 

 are, however, certain species which have been reported as occur- 

 ring in Yorkshire on evidence which is regarded by authors as 

 more or less insufficient for their admission into the British fauna. 

 These are inserted in their zoological position, but — in order 

 that it may be quite clear that their claims are not fully accepted 

 — no numbers are prefixed. Nor are they prefixed to Cygnus olor 

 and Alca impennis — the first a domesticated bird and the second 

 admittedly extinct 



Reptiles and Amphibians. — The hsts of reptiles and 

 amphibians are founded upon Bell's British Reptiles and the 

 writings of Dr. Giinther and Mr. St. George Mivart. An amphi- 

 bian, however, which has been described in the works of Bell and 

 Cooke — Ommatotriton vittatus or Gray's Banded Newt, a Syrian 



