PREFACE. ix 



to 815) I have endeavoured to convey the characters in a short and concise manner, but I trust 

 sufficiently detailed to embrace and circumscribe the species which they are severally presumed to 

 comprise. The generic characters are followed by a short notice of the habits of the birds which are 

 best known or most characteristic of the genus under which they are placed. These I have usually drawn 

 up from the writings of other authors, but in a few instances I have been able to add some particulars 

 derived from private information. This is a subject of the greatest interest ; but unfortunately little 

 is known of the habits of very many forms, and it is therefore to be hoped that those naturalists who 

 have the means will not neglect the opportunity of adding such facts as may come to their knowledge 

 regarding these species, and thus while contributing towards the history of their economy, assist at 

 the same time in exemplifying their proper position in the general system. 



Then follows an extensive List of Species, with references to the names of the older authors, and to 

 the numerous specific descriptions that have been published within the last few years, and many of 

 which are scattered through a multitude of publications not always easy of examination. This portion 

 of the Work has been attended with no small amount of labour and research ; and its due execution is 

 beset with numerous sources of error, some of which it may not be improper to mention here. Thus, for 

 instance, the undefined nature of the genus in which many of the species were placed by their original 

 describers, their location in an improper genus, or even the imperfect nature of the description itself, 

 frequently rendered it difficult, if not impossible, to determine to what genus, in the system employed in 

 the present Work, many species really belonged. Again, it is not always easy, even with a very 

 extensive knowledge of species, to define what is really to be regarded as a true species. This greatly 

 depends on individual opinion ; some ornithologists, for example, considering the allied examples found 

 in the two hemispheres to belong to the same species ; while others consider those belonging to 

 each of these great divisions of the world to be specifically distinct ; and we frequently find different 

 states of the same bird, or even hybrids between two species, described as distinct. It is sometimes 

 scarcely possible to clear up such difficulties by means of descriptions only, whereas a careful examina- 

 tion of the original specimens would generally be sufficient to enable an experienced ornithologist to 

 determine on their right to be regarded as distinct species. 



Some, too, of the species described by the older authors, from the Leverian and other museums now 

 dispersed, have not since been recognised in other collections. Yet it is essential that they should be 

 inserted in the list of species, inasmuch as it is probable that many, if not most, of them may again be 

 brought to light, as has actually been the case in several recent instances. Numerous species have also 

 been recorded, on the authority merely of drawings more or less correct ; and the examination of these 

 drawings, when practicable, has not unfrequently led to the superseding of names given by more modem 

 writers, by those employed by the older describers. It will be found, moreover, that many descriptions, 

 even of a modern date, are so imperfect, either from their brevity or from a laxity in the use of terms, 

 as to be wholly insufficient for the identification of the species, which could in such cases only be 

 arrived at by the inspection of the original specimen. Such an extent of information could only be 



