names of species (often misspelt), and the colours of the
soft parts, the text and not the plates must be relied on.
Yet in this matter of the plates, indifferent as the
results may seem, Captain Marshall took an infinity of
pains, and but for his labours this work could never have
appeared.
The text, for which Mr. Hume is mainly responsible,
is likewise by no means what he would have wished to
make it. A work like this requires leisure; time to
consult all that has ever been written by others in regard
to each species; time to weld all this together with
personal and unpublished experiences into a harmonious
tion in India and elsewnere, 01 tne places in wmcn it
may be sought, and of its habits, food, and nidification
so far as these are yet known, and after all, imperfect
as it may be, it is the best that, circumstanced as they
have been, the Authors could possibly produce.
A L L A N HUME.
SIMLA, ist July 1879.
SUPPLEMENTARY PREFACE.
— f c s ® » * - —
F E W words of explanation are due from me to
our readers to account for the anomaly of a
work whose cover bears the name of two
authors being written by only one of these.
A work like this, however, can only (if it is
to form a consistent whole) be actually written
by one person, and it became necessary, therefore, to
divide the work involved in the production of the book
in some other way than by assigning the preparation
of half the text to one author and of the other half to
the other.
Two quite distinct and equally troublesome undertakings
were included in the preparation of T H E GAME
BIRDS—the one the compilation of the text; the other
the superintendence of the preparation of the enormous
number of plates required. Mr. Hume desired to write
the text, and the humbler, though perhaps not much less
laborious, task fell to my share.
I have performed my portion of the work to the very
best of my abilities, and yet personally feel almost as if
I were sailing under false colors in appearing before the
world as one of the authors of this book ; but I allow
my name to appear as such, partly because Mr. Hume
strongly wishes it, partly because I do believe that as
Mr. Hume says this work, which has been for years
called for, would never have appeared had I not proceeded
to England, and arranged for the preparation of
the plates, and partly because with the explanation thus
afforded no one can justly misconstrue my action.
C. H. T . M A R S H A L L .