PREFACE. 



names of species (often misspelt), and the colours of the 

 soft parts, the text and not the plates must be relied on. 



Yet in this matter of the plates, indifferent as the 

 results may seem, Captain Marshall took an infinity of 

 pains, and but for his labours this work could never have 

 appeared. 



The text, for which Mr. Hume is mainly responsible, 

 is likewise by no means what he would have wished to 

 make it. A work like this requires leisure ; time to 

 consult all that has ever been written by others. in regard 

 to each species ; time to weld all this together with 

 personal and unpublished experiences into a harmonious 

 whole ; time to re-write, revise and polish. As it is, 

 amidst the pressure of other work of all kinds, Mr. Hume 

 has only been able to jot down roughly his own 

 experiences, supplementing these by such notes of others, 

 published and unpublished, as he chanced to have 

 available. 



The printing, too, had necessarily to be done in India, 

 and though extremely good for this country, cannot 

 compare in finish and general appearance with similar 

 work turned out at home, where sheets, as printed, can 

 be passed between hot rollers, giving a gloss and finish 

 to the pages impossible to be attained in any other 

 manner. 



But the Authors' case is simply this : the work is one 

 much wanted and long called for ; no one else appeared 

 willing to incur the trouble and great expense involved 

 in its preparation. Indifferent as it is, whether from an 

 artistic or literary point of view, it will yet, it is 

 believed, enable sportsmen to identify every game bird 

 they may shoot, and ascertain something of its distribu- 

 tion in India and elsewhere, of the places in which it 

 may be sought, and of its habits, food, and nidification 

 so far as these are yet known, and after all, imperfect 

 as it may be, it is the best that, circumstanced as they 

 have been, the Authors could possibly produce. 



Simla, ist July 1879. 



ALLAN HUME. 



