No. 49.— 1898.] 



CEYLON BIRDS. 



155 



AIDS TO THE IDENTIFICATION OF CEYLON BIRDS. 



Part f. — Introduction and Key to the Passeres. 



By A. Haly, Director of the Colombo Museum. 



[Note.— The titles of the following works are abbreviated thus : — 



Legge. — Legge, W.V.: A History of the Birds of Ceylon, 2 vols., 

 London, 1880. 



Catalogue. — Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, 



by various Authors, 1874 to 1894. 

 Fauna. — Fauna of British India, Oates and Blanford, 4 



vols., 1889 to 1898. 

 Dictionary. — A Dictionary of Birds, by Newton, Gadow, and 



others, 1896.— A. H.] 



The following list of Birds recorded from Ceylon is 

 compiled from the " Fauna of British India, Birds. " 



My first object has been to make the identification of our 

 Ceylon birds as easy as possible for the student. 



No one needs to be told that he has an eagle or an owl, a 

 parrot or a pigeon, before him. If he wishes, however, to 

 define the genera or sub-families or families under which 

 his specimen is classed, he will find himself plunged in 

 difficulties, which it is partly the object of the following 

 pages to point out. 



As a matter of fact I believe that in a limited Fauna like 

 our own, the measurements and colours will be found suffi- 

 cient for the identification of any of the species. 



The names of the species are those of the Fauna. After 

 the name one or more figures are inserted in brackets, which 

 refer to the paragraphs of the key which precedes each 

 order. 



These keys are compiled from the Fauna, and are so 

 arranged that the characters of any species can be read conti- 

 nuously from the more to the less general. By means of 

 two extra columns of figures the paragraphs can be referred 



