PREFACE 



It was the intention of my predecessor in the office of 

 Prosector to the Zoological Society, the late Professor 

 Garrod, F.E.S., to write a treatise upon bird anatomy. 

 This intention was so far realised that a nearly complete 

 account of the anatomy of the fowl, with the appropriate 

 illustrations, was actually drawn up ; it was proposed that 

 this should be followed by a second part, in which the general 

 anatomical characters of the different groups of birds were to 

 be stated. Of this second part I have beside me some thirty 

 sheets of MS. Professor Garrod's successor in the post of 

 Prosector to the Zoological Society, the late Mr. W. A. 

 Forbes, had every intention of finishing this work com- 

 menced ; but unfortunately death took place before any 

 actual additions had been made to the MS. left by his 

 predecessor. I have, on the kind encouragement of Mr. 

 Sclater, determined to make an attempt to carry out this 

 plan of my two forerunners, and the present volume is the 

 result. 



It must be admitted that a handbook upon bird anatomy 

 was more wanted at the time that it was first conceived by 

 Mr. Garrod than it is at the present day. Zoologists had 

 then nothing of a general character save the incomplete 

 fragment of Bronn's ' Thierreich ' and the sections devoted 

 to bird anatomy in such comprehensive works as those of 

 Meckel and Cuvier. We have now two treatises of first- 

 rate merit, that of Fiirbringer and Dr. Gadow's completion 

 of the section ' Aves ' in Broiln's ' Thierreich.' Professor 



