J: J) QUELCH. 121 
ABSTRACT OF ADDRESS ON THE BIRDS OF 
BRITISH GUIANA.” 
BY J. J. QUELCH, B. SC., C. M. Z. S., CURATOR-IN-CHARGE, BRITISH 
GUIANA MUSEUM, AND SPECIAL COMMISSIONER FOR BRITISH 
GUIANA TO THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. 
I must apologize at the very beginning of my address in 
that I shall be compelled to make use of many of the 
technical names of the Guiana birds, though there is this 
excuse, that while in very many cases their common names 
would be absolutely meaningless to most of you, their tech- 
nical names will tell precisely to all ornithologists the 
nature of the bird denoted. There is this practical defence 
for what are often called crack-jaw names of animals in 
common parlance, that whereas the common names will 
vary with each language and often with slightly different 
localities, scientific names are the same in all tongues, and 
in all parts of the world. 
A special interest attaches to our Guiana birds, not only 
on account of the very large number of species, and their 
astonishing brilliance of plumage, but also on account of 
the peculiarities of form and structure, by which many dis- 
tinctive families are characterized. Hardly ten years ago, 
Osbert Salvin, in the pages of the “Ibis,” published a 
revised hand-list of the birds of British Guiana, and enumer- 
ated some 700 species, based as well on the results pre- 
viously obtained as largely on the work of the noted col- 
lector, Henry Whiteley. Quite recently I have been able to 
extend this list by several dozen species, which, though well 
