PREFACE. 
The promoters of ‘ The Ibis 5 think it due to the public, 
and to themselves, that, on the completion of the first 
volume, some account should be given of the circum¬ 
stances under which the undertaking was originated. 
For some years past a few gentlemen attached to the 
study of Ornithology, most of them more or less inti¬ 
mately connected with the University of Cambridge, had 
been in the habit of meeting together, once a-year, or 
oftener, to exhibit to one another the various objects of 
interest which had occurred to them, and to talk over 
both former and future plans of adding to their know¬ 
ledge of this branch of Natural History. 
These meetings, being entirely of a private and social 
nature, were found agreeable by those who attended 
them, and gradually became more frequented. In the 
autumn of 1857 the gathering of naturalists was greater 
than it had hitherto been, and it appeared that among 
some of those present there was a strong feeling that it 
would be advisable to establish a Magazine devoted 
solely to Ornithology. 
This feeling was not prompted by any jealousy of 
periodicals already existing, but by the belief that the 
