VI PREFACE. 



flocks of the Demoiselle on the banks of the Nile ; to Mr. Harting, for 

 much kind assistance during the progress of the work j above all, to Mr. 

 P. H. Waterhouse, the librarian of the Zoological Society, for the valuable 

 and unwearied aid that he rendered in tracing back to the original 

 authority every synonym given in the volume, thus enabling me to correct 

 a large number of erroneous references which have been copied by writer 

 after writer for a century past. I was amply rewarded for the trouble 

 taken in this matter by being able to show that the absurd title 

 reguloriim, applied to the Southern Crowned Crane had no foundation, 

 the proper title being Balearica chrysopelargus (P. Z. S., Feb, 17, 1880). 



It will doubtless be observed that the specific names employed are 

 sometimes masculine, at others feminine {Orua being an epicene noun),' 

 and it has been suggested that it would be desirable to make them 

 uniform, but by so doing I should outrage the accepted code of Zoological 

 nomenclature, inasmuch as Gould first named one species Orus austra- 

 lasianus and Temminck another Grus monacha. I have therefore allowed 

 them to remain as originally written by the first describers. 



The illustrations speak for themselves. The frontispiece shows a scene 

 which, as far as I am aware, has never before been delineated. The 

 truthfulness of the plate of the White-naped Crane has not been excelled 

 by the painstaking artist, who has also drawn the portraits of eight 

 species from specimens living in the Zoological Gardens. The coloured 

 figure of the new species Grus nigricollis is a fac-simile of that in the 

 Eussian edition of Lieut-Col. Prjevalsky's work. Mr. Cutler has lent 

 me some plates from his beautiful work on Japanese ornament. The 

 anatomical cuts, which have been drawn by myself, though coarse, are 

 sufficiently correct to answer their purpose. 



FlNCHLET, N. 



Feb., 1881. 



