PREFACE. 
THE acquisition of a small but valuable collection of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains 
by Mr. John Gould, F.LS., Superintendent of the Ornithological Collection of the Zoological 
Society, afforded an opportunity, in the course of last year, of giving a sample of the Ornitho- 
logy of that interesting range. The opportunity also occurring of employing the well-known 
abilities of Mrs. Gould in delineating these birds, it was considered expedient to make a 
selection of a hundred of the most important for publication, with the assurance of the 
execution of the Plates being equal to the interest of the subjects. The specimens were 
occasionally exhibited at the evening meetings of the Committee of Science and Correspondence 
of the Zoological Society, and descriptions given from time to time of the new species, which 
were subsequently published in the “ Proceedings” of the Committee. In the course of the 
exhibition of the original collection, a few subjects were added from the Ashmolean Museum 
at Oxford, from the Museums at Glasgow and Liverpool, and that of the Hon. C. J. Shore, 
figures of which were incorporated in the Work. The Century is now completed : and the 
following detailed descriptions of the species are intended to accompany the Plates. 
The whole of the original specimens from which the Plates were taken, amounting to ninety, 
are deposited in the Museum of the Zoological Society, to which they were most liberally pre- 
sented by Mr. Gould. A reference to the collections to which the remaining ten belong, will 
be added to the description of the respective species. 
It is not to be expected that much general information respecting the geographical distribu- 
tion of forms and species, which constitutes the chief value of local collections, can be derived. 
from so limited a collection as the present. Still, many important inferences may be drawn 
from it, that throw much light on this important subject. ‘The most prominent feature, in this 
respect, of the collection, is the number of Northern forms that are found to exist in these com- 
paratively Southern latitudes ; a fact of course to be accounted for by the consideration of the 
elevation of these mountains affording a temperature equal to that of the most northern regions. 
