PREFACE 
BY THE EDITOR. 
THE publisher of this work having resolved to give a new 
edition of the seventh volume, the Editor eonceivcd that lie would 
render an acceptable service to naturalists by revising it, and 
adapting it to the present state of ornithological knowledge. In 
the prosecution of this task it will be perceived that he has taken 
the liberty of materially altering some of the articles, omitting 
synonymes and adding others ; and changing the nomenclature. 
That in endeavouring to correct the mistakes of the autlior he has 
sometimes fallen into error himself, it may, probably, be objected 
to him ; but for the greater part of the alterations he can produce 
the authority of a name which deservedly stands the first upon the 
roll of the ornithologists of the age, Mr. C. J. Temminck. From 
the second edition of the Manuel d’ Ornithologie of this gentleman 
the Editor has derived important assistance; and he takes this 
opportunity to express his high sense of the merit of that com- 
prehensive work. 
It ought not, perhaps, to be concealed that Wilson committed 
more errors of nomenclature in his seventh volume than in any of 
his preceding volumes. These arose in the first place from his not 
