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INTRODUCTION. 



the Caspian. This work on Eastern Persia also contains an account of the collections made by 

 Sir Oliver St. John during his residence near Shiraz. When we come to Afghanistan we have the 

 excellent observations of Captain Hutton on the Birds of Kandahar, published in 1845 and 1846, and 

 the more scattered notices of the collections made by Dr. Samuel Griffith in the same country, as 

 recorded by Messrs. Horsfield and Moore in their ' Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum of the East 

 India Company.' Besides these there are some excellent papers by Colonel Swinhoe, Captain Wardlaw 

 Ramsay, and Serjeant Barnes, giving an account of the birds observed by them during the last 



Afghan war. 



As regards British India, we have already alluded to the state of its ornithological record up to 

 the year 1850, when the labours of Blyth and Jerdon had done so much to prepare the way for 

 the successful issue which has since uninterruptedly followed. Ceylon appears to have been the next 

 place to be explored by working ornithologists; and Mr. E. L. Layard contributed in 1853 

 some very interesting notes on the birds of that country, supplementary to the catalogue published 

 by Dr. Kelaart in his ' Prodromus Faunae Zeylonicae.' But in the year 1854 a most important work on 

 Indian ornithology was issued, which we consider to have had a great effect upon the recent studies 

 of ornithologists. This was the ' Catalogue of the Birds in the Museum of the East India Company,' 

 a work which bears on its title-page the names of Dr. Horsfield and Mr. F. Moore, but which 

 is known to have been prepared entirely by the last-named naturalist. The importance of this 

 Catalogue consists in the fact that it gathers together into one compass all the scattered literature 

 of Indian birds which existed up to that period, and is especially valuable as containing a connected list 

 of references to Mr. Blyth's papers spread over many volumes of the Asiatic Society's ' Journal.' It must 

 therefore never be forgotten that in that year ornithologists possessed for the first time a nearly complete 

 literature of Indian birds, as far as the Accipitres, Passeres, and Picariae are concerned. A lull then 

 appears to have taken place in Indian ornithology, broken only by occasional papers from Mr. Blyth, 

 Colonel Tickell, and other field-naturalists, until the year 1862, when Dr. Jerdon brought out the 

 first volume of his ' Birds of India.' This book, which was published in three octavo volumes, was 

 completed in 1864; and, equally by naturalists at home as by field-ornithologists in India, it has been 

 recognized as the standard work on Indian ornithology. Many years must elapse before its utility 

 will be impaired ; and it is certain that every one writing on the birds of India has to take 

 Jerdon's book as his starting-point. Mr. Blyth's able critique on this book in ' The Ibis ' added 



