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QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ORNITHOLOGY.

EDITED BY

PHILIP LUTLEY SCLATER, M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S.,

SECRETARY TO THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

GURNEY AND JACKSON, 1 PATERNOSTER ROW.

(SUCCESSORS TO J. VAN VOORST.)

1890.

PREFACE.

A PREFACE is, we suppose, necessary for the thirtysecond, as for the preceding volumes of 'THE IBIS,' but we need not detain our readers long on the present occasion.

It will perhaps be observed that the second volume of the Sixth Series of this Journal is not quite so bulky as those which immediately precede it; but it will be allowed, we trust, that it does not fall behind them in interest or variety. By the list of contributors it will be seen that the Editor has received valuable support from many of the older members of the British Ornithologists' Union, for which he begs leave to tender them his most hearty thanks. He would, however, venture to suggest that some of the younger members, by whose names the roll of the B. O. U. is annually increased, should take a more decided interest in our favourite subject. It is difficult, no doubt, and becomes every year more difficult, to find new ground to work and new birds to describe; but in the Anatomy, Osteology, and Pterylography of Birds there is still an ample field open, and one which will yield abundant fruits to energy and experience. It should be always recollected that, of the twelve thousand birds known to science, eleven thousand or