INTRODUCTION. 
XX 
Among the perching birds there is a great excess of the Insecrivora—Podarg?, Meneame , emia ide, 
LohiaaP inte, &e., of the Grantvors, such as various species of the Jringillide, and of the alien The 
12 tribe of birds is more numerous in Australia than in any other part of he world, oa forms ue ae 
groups, viz. the Calyptorhynchi, which mainly procure their food from the Spit shit ra and Eucalypti ; 
the weatue, which feed upon the terrestrial Orchidea, &e. 3 the Trichoglossi, which subsist upon the nectar 
they extract from the flower-cups and blossoms of the Euealypte; and the ground and i eae 
which feed almost exclusively on the seeds of the various grasses that abound on the plains; the united 
groups amounting to nearly sixty species, 
Of the Rasorial forms,—while the Pigeons and Hemipodes are numerous, the larger and typical 
GaLLiInaces are entirely wanting ; their only representatives being a few species of Coturnix and Synoicus. 
The Grallatorial birds are about equal in number to those of other countries ; and among the water 
birds the true Ducks are but few, while the Procellaride which visit the coast are more abundant than 
in any other part of the world, On a retrospect of the whole we find a greater number of nocturnal 
birds than is comprised in the ornithology of any other section of the globe. I must not omit to mention 
too the extraordinary fecundity which preyails in Australia, many of its smaller birds breeding three or four 
times in a season; but laying fewer eggs in the early spring when insect life is less developed, and a greater 
number later in the season when the supply of insect food has become more abundant. I have also some 
reason to believe that the young of many species breed during the first season, for among others I frequently 
found one section of the Honey-eaters (the Melithrept:) sitting upon eggs while still clothed in the brown 
dress of immaturity; and we know that such is the case with the introduced Gauuinaces, three or four 
generations of which have been often produced in the course of a year. 
Another peculiar feature connected with the Australian ornithology is that of its comprising several 
forms endowed with the power of sustaining and enjoying life without a supply of water, that element 
without which most others languish and die; for instance, the Halcyons, which I found living and even 
breeding on the parched plains of the interior during the severe drought of 1838-39, far removed from any 
water ; the food of these birds being insects and lizards. 
A considerable number of the older-known of the Australian birds have been described in the general 
works of Vicillot, Latham, Shaw and others; but their descriptions are so vague, and the species them- 
selves so frequently referred to genera widely different from those to which they really belong, that it has 
been impossible to identify the whole of them ; but wherever they could be identitied with certainty their 
names have been adopted, or quoted in the synonyms, 
rye . + . « hae Ls 
Che “Birds of Europe” were arranged according to the views of the late Mr. Vigors; and in the 
sa - ~ t, ’ ie ’ - . , 4 P - 
“Birds of Australia” the arrangement 1s mainly the same, with some modifications of my own which 
appeared to me to be necessary. 
I have been constrained, for the sake of uniformity in size, to divide the present work into seven 
volumes; the first of which comprises the Rarrorxs, the small number of Which will account for its being 
somewhat thinner than the others; the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth yolumes comprise the 
Insessones, Rasones and GRALLATORES in one continuous series, and the seventh the Natwrorers. 
