This volume contains our account of all the Orders of Birds met with
within the Argentine Republic except the Passeres, which were treated of
in the First Volume. It also comprises an Appendix and Index, and
completes the work. The Introduction is issued with this, but is
intended to be bound up with the first volume, and is paged to follow
the contents of that volume.
The total number of species which we have thus assigned to the Argentine
Avifauna is 434. To this list, no doubt, considerable additions will
have to be made when the more remote provinces of the Republic have been
explored. We trust that this work may at least serve to excite residents
in Argentina to make fresh investigations, for we are quite aware how
imperfect is the compilation now offered to the public.
It will be seen that in the following pages, as in the first volume, we
have availed ourselves liberally of the information on Argentine birds
contained in the writings of Dr. Burmeister, Mr. Barrows, and Mr.
Gibson. To all of these gentlemen we wish to offer our most sincere
thanks, together with apologies for the liberty we have taken. We have
likewise to express our high estimation of the valuable notes which we
have extracted from the published writings of the late Henry Durnford
and Ernest William White, both most promising Naturalists, and both
alike lost to Science at an early age. Nor must we omit to record our
thanks to Hans, Graf von Berlepsch, of Münden, Mr. Walter B. Barrows,
and Mr. Frank Withington, and other friends and correspondents who have
aided us by information and by the loan of specimens.
To the Zoological Society of London and to Mr. Henry Seebohm we are
likewise much indebted for the loan of the woodcuts of which impressions
are contained in these volumes.
P. L. S.
_February 1, 1889._