lxii PREFACE. 



liberality of Dr. Horsfield, under whose able superintendence the 

 whole is placed. 



I have great pleasure in offering my best thanks to the Council of 

 the Linn/ean Society, who, with their usual liberality and love for 

 science, gave me free permission to make use of their noble collection 

 of Australian Birds. Many errors in their descriptions * have been 

 thus detected, and the geographic range of several groups, confounded 

 with those of America, have been better ascertained. 



I feel bound also to return my acknowledgments to the Council of 

 the Zoological Society for their well-intentioned permission to make 

 use of their Museum in Bruton-street ; although, from the peculiar 

 wording of the order, and the subsequent prohibition by its officers of 

 taking notes, this permission, for all effectual purposes, was rendered 

 nugatory. The work, however, will not, I trust, suffer much from 

 this. Dr. Richardson has had free access to the northern species ; 

 and the Museum, rich only in the ornithology of Java and Sumatra, 

 will bear no comparison, even in those productions, with the collections 

 made by MM. Duvaucel and Diard, now in Paris ; all of which, by the 

 liberality of MM. Cuvier and Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, I have minutely 

 examined. 



Sir W. Jardine, Bart., and P. J. Selby, Esq., the able authors of 

 the " Illustrations of Ornithology," have both materially contributed 

 to assist these researches, by transmitting to me, from time to time, 

 all new or dubious forms which have come to their respective museums. 

 When it is remembered that these gentlemen are themselves engaged 

 in publishing ornithological novelties, such disinterestedness demands 

 an especial and grateful acknowledgment. 



To that enterprising traveller and accomplished naturalist, William 

 J. Burchell, Esq., the public expression of my thanks cannot be here 

 omitted. His vast collections, formed in the interior of Southern 

 Africa, have been at all times open to me ; and it was here that I 

 became acquainted with the new Genus Chceeto'ps, so peculiarly inte- 

 resting as forming the Rasorial type of the Merulina, connecting that 

 sub-family to the Crateropodince. 



* Linn, Trans., xv. 



