PREFACE.

 

THE acquisition of a small but valuable collection of Birds from the Himalayan Mountains
by Mr. John Gould, F.L.S., Superintendent of the Ornithological Collection of the Zoological
Society, afforded an opportunity, in the course of last year, of giving a sample of the Ornitho-
logy of that interesting range. ‘The opportunity also occurring of employing the well-known
abilities of Mrs. Gould in delineating these birds, it was considered expedient to make a
selection of a hundred of the most important for publication, with the assurance of the
execution of the Plates being equal to the interest of the subjects. The specimens were
occasionally exhibited at the evening meetings of the Committee of Science and Correspondence
of the Zoological Society, and descriptions given from time to ume of the new species, which
were subsequently published in the “ Proceedings” of the Committee. In the course of the
exhibition of the original collection, a few subjects were added from the Ashmolean Museum
at Oxford, from the Museums at Glasgow and Liverpool, and that of the Hon. C. J. Shore,
figures of which were incorporated in the Work. The Century is now completed: and the
following detailed descriptions of the species are intended to accompany the Plates.

The whole of the original specimens from which the Plates were taken, amounting to ninety,
are deposited in the Museum of the Zoological Society, to which they were most liberally pre-
sented by Mr. Gould. A reference to the collections to which the remaining ten belong, will
be added to the description of the respective species.

It is not to be expected that much general information respecting the geographical distribu-
tion of forms and species, which constitutes the chief value of local collections, can be derived
from so limited a collection as the present. Still, many important inferences may be drawn
from it, that throw much light on this important subject. ‘The most prominent feature, in this
respect, of the collection, is the number of Northern forms that are found to exist in these com-

paratively Southern latitudes ; a fact of course to be accounted for by the consideration of the

elevation of these mountains affording a temperature equal to that of the most northern regions.

   

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