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PBEFACE. 
The collection of Bird skins, here catalogued, was formed 
by the late Hugh Edwin Strickland, M.A., F.R.S., of Oriel 
College, Oxford, and Deputy Reader of Geology in that Uni- 
versity, who at the age of forty-two years was killed by a 
railway train whilst in the pursuit of his scientific labours on 
the 14th of September, 1853. Begun by him when yet a boy, 
for the label of one of the specimens (No. 3051 a) bears date 
August, 1822, the formation of this collection continued to be 
a great object of interest with him throughout his life ; but 
most of the specimens obtained by him prior to 1833 were 
mounted and placed in cases in the hall at Apperley Court, near 
Tewkesbury, his father’s seat, where they still are. 
In the year last mentioned, however, his brother Algernon 
Strickland, a midshipman in the Royal Navy, visiting the Cape 
of Good Hope, Mauritius, and Southern India, obtained about 
90 specimens now in the collection ; and in the winter of 
1835 — 36, Strickland himself made a voyage to Greece and 
Asia Minor, where he collected upwards of 100 others. 
In 1838 Strickland largely increased his collection by 
purchasing about 1200 specimens from his cousin Nathaniel 
Constantine Strickland. Another cousin, Arthur Stricklaud, 
purchased at the same time some 500 additional specimens, 
which also became the property of H. E. Strickland in 1850. 
The specimens thus acquired form no inconsiderable part of 
the whole collection. They had been originally obtained, as 
I am informed, partly from captains of merchantmen, and partly 
from dealers. 
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