PREFACE 
T he completion of my fourth volume calls for little comment, but I 
appreciate the slow and steady progress made in ornithological study 
since I commenced mv work. 
t/ 
Since my third volume was finished, I have visited Australia and made 
the personal acquaintance of my numerous valued correspondents, previously 
known by letters and gifts only. It would be superfluous to enlarge upon 
the pleasme which such meetings gave me, and I feel that the 
previous good feeling has been strengthened by the personal communication. 
I cannot thank each ornithologist in this place for his welcome, as it would 
practically mean a recognition of all the members of the Royal Australasian 
Ornithologists’ Union, but I must put on record my appreciation of the 
kindnesses I met with over the whole of Australia and the fact that the 
interchange of ideas with many of my apparent opponents was marked with 
the greatest of courtesy, and I am certain we have aU benefited by the 
intercourse. Consequently the sentiments expressed in the preface to the 
last volume, as regards the help I received from local workers, must now be 
emphasized as from personal friends. 
I there suggested that the “ tiresome ” matter of nomenclature was 
reaching an easy conclusion and I am pleased to confirm this statement, as 
since my visit prominent Australian ornithologists such as Mr. A. H. Mattingley, 
the President of the Union, and Mr. H. L. White have communica\;ed views 
confirming my own conclusions, which were only those of the extra-Australian 
scientific world. I now anticipate a comparatively speedy result in the usage 
of a uniform nomenclature. 
The ultra-conservative Committee of the British Ornithologists’ Union 
have published their List, and it is remarkable in that it professes to use a 
policy of “ Nomina Conservanda,” but was only able to suggest 13 out of 
475 as worthy of such consideration. A semi-policy of binomial usage as 
against trinomials was also proposed, with the result that it is already a 
proved failure, and a fully trinomial system will ere long be as universal in 
British avian nomenclature as it wiU be in that of Australia. 
XI 
