PEEFACE. 
T here is little to record, yet mucli of great importance to Australian 
ornithologists has happened during the publication of this, the third 
volume of my work. 
The “ tiresome ” matter of nomenclature has been much discussed by 
the zoological workers of the world, and it is to he hoped that the conclusions 
reached will enable all of us to settle such matters easily and finally. 
A Committee of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union has 
published a CTiecldist, which, on account of the basic principles being bad, 
has been repudiated by the progressive Australian ornithologists, and 
justly condemned by unprejudiced extra- Australian workers as only capable 
of causing confusion. I have since prepared a List based upon the 
International Rules governing Nomenclature, and have included all the 
synonymy known to me, so that Austrahan workers should be at no 
disadvantage as compared with those with more access to literature. It 
is important that local workers should possess such a list, as no one at 
the present time can do lasting work without having a knowledge of his 
contemporaries’ labours as well as a guide to preceding records. 
I have to acknowledge that each year I am receiving more aid from 
local workers with regard to the life-histories of birds, and' I have 
endeavoured to supply my co-operating friends with the result of my 
labours as regards the systematic study of the birds of Australia. As an 
instance of the advances made in our knowledge may be cited the case 
of the Great White Heron of Australia. The results of systematic study 
of this group were given by Sharpe in the Catalogue of the Birds in 
the British Museum, Vol. XXVI. The researches of Messrs. Cole and 
Mattingley have shown that those results were erroneous, yet without 
the diligent application made by those gentlemen, it is almost certain 
that Sharpe’s deductions would have been endorsed. 
In the Introduction to my List of the Birds of Australia^ I made 
note of the peculiar discoveries that might be made in Australia with 
regard to “ island faunas ” on that continent. I instanced the isolation 
XV. 
