J. J. QUELCH. 



ABSTRACT OF ADDRESS ON THE BIRDS OF 

 BRITISH GUIANA." 



BY J. J. (2UELCH, 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 



