THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
the only List showing the nomenclature of Australian Birds in this scientific 
manner, and as I have corrected it in every possible way as I have monographed 
the groups, I propose at the end of the next volume, which will complete the 
non-Passerine birds, to give a List of the species with names and data as 
corrected up to that point. 
Since the preceding was written, a peculiar confusion has arisen which I 
here discuss, so that my readers can get the position truly without recourse to 
newspapers. My “ erstwhile friend,” Mr. Archibald J. Campbell of Melbourne, 
the famous author of Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds , has written to the 
weekly press of Australia, viz. The Australasian of April 28th, 1917, a letter 
in which he has made statements which are contrary to the facts, and which 
disclose ignorance on his side of the subject he deals with. I had intended 
to ignore this absurd letter, but my Australian distributors have written to 
my publishers asking for a refutation, as this foolish letter has caused other 
subscribers to consider the matter without recourse to the facts. 
Mr. Campbell has written : “We were promised that the work was to 
be completed in eight volumes at a prospective cost of £70.” This is untrue , 
and if Mr. Campbell did not know it to be so, then he is a very careless man. 
If he will look, and read, my prospectus again (if he ever read it in the 
first instance) he should write a public apology to The Australasian simply 
as an act of justice. The succeeding sentences in Mr. Campbell’s letter are 
as inaccurate as this one. Mr. Campbell continues by complaining that too 
much of the letterpress has been technical (even speculative at times), and 
concludes : “ Why have subscribers to pay for page upon page of extraneous 
matter concerning nomenclature ? ” I would point out that my subscribers 
do not pay for this extraneous matter. I do all that. Each page of 
“ extraneous matter ” is given to my subscribers. Mr. Campbell suggests 
that he would be content with four pages, whereas I gave him eighteen for the 
same money. It is difficult to suit all people, as when the parts were small, 
owing to our ignorance of the birds treated, complaints were made ; now 
when they are of larger size, still complaints are made. All my subscribers 
must have observed that, whatever I have done, I have stuck to my very 
bad bargain as regards myself to my subscribers in the matter of price, 
instead of the opposite. When I entered into my contract no world conflict 
was ever anticipated, and the present conditions are such that my outlay in 
the publication of my work has very considerably increased, and I have not 
complained. Had I cut down my work to the barest limits I venture to 
suggest some would have complained still more. However, I have dealt with 
this item in this place so that my subscribers may gauge for themselves, by 
facing the facts, who deserves the blame in this matter. 
xu. 
