PREFACE.
The Vertebrate animals of British India have now been described for the first time in a single uniform series, consisting of eight volumes, of which this is the last to appear. The work comprises two volumes on Fishes by the late Dr. P. Day. one on Reptiles and Batrachians by Mr. G. Boulenger, and two on Birds by Mr. E. W. Gates; the remaining two volumes of Birds and one on Mammals, together with the editing of the whole, having been my own contribution to the undertaking. Five volumes on Invertebrata four on the Moths of British India by Sir G. P. Hampson, and one on the Hymenoptera by Colonel C. T. Bingham have also been published on the same plan. The work has fully occupied me during the fifteen years that have now elapsed since my retirement from Indian service; but the completion of the Vertebrate series would not have been practicable without the valuable cooperation of the able naturalists already mentioned.
This volume contains the Pigeons, the Gallinaceous birds, and the numerous tribes commonly classed together as Waders and Swimming birds. It thus includes all the Game Birds, both of land and water an arrangement which may be found convenient, although good separate works on the subject exist, containing fuller details than are consistent with the limits of the present publication. One part of a
