xxvi EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



gentlemen I am under especial obligation for a free access to 

 tlieir rich collections, as well as for much valuable informa- 

 tion ; and, indeed, but for the help of my friend Mr. Sharpe, I 

 should have despaired of effecting a satisfactory identification of 

 many of the smaller insessorial species; but with the aid which 

 I have received, this has, I believe, been accomplished with 

 considerable accuracy. 



Most of Mr. Andersson^s specimens were numbered by him as 

 they were obtained ; and many of these numbers corresponded 

 with memoranda in his note-book, which greatly facilitated the 

 work of identification. 



By far the greater number of the species referred to in 

 the following pages were obtained by Mr. Audersson himself; 

 but a few which he did not meet with, but which have been 

 satisfactorily ascertained on other authority to have occurred 

 within the districts to which the present volume refers, are 

 here included, for the purpose of making the entire catalogue 

 of the birds known to inhabit these countries as complete as 

 possible. 



Mr. Andersson's notes as here given, have been extracted 

 partly from his rough note-book and partly from the MS. (which 

 he had partially prepared at the time of his decease) for his 

 projected work on the avifauna of South-western Africa, to both 

 which documents I have had full access by the kind permission 

 of Mr. Andersson^s widow. 



To have given the whole of these MSS. in full would have 

 extended the present work to a very inconvenient size ; and I 

 have therefore only extracted such portions as appeared to me 

 to embody Mr. Andersson's personal and original observations. 



The operation of combining these extracts into a consecutive 

 account has made it necessary to have recourse to some verbal 

 emendations ; but I have endeavoured scrupulously to avoid any 

 alterations which could in any degree vary the meaning of the 

 author. 



