Excerpt from Some Useful Australian Birds In the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, of January, 1896, the late Mr. A. J. North, Ornithologist to the Australian Museum, commenced a series of papers under the title of 14 A List of the Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales," which appeared at irregular intervals in 1896, 1897, 1900, 1901, 1902, and 1905. The list comprised brief descriptions of 160 birds, and was illustrated with a number of lithographic plates in colours. Three parts were afterwards issued separately, but such was the demand that the supply was soon exhausted. So many inquiries were made concerning the articles that it was decided to issue a second series. The editor at that time of the Agricultural Gazette, Mr. J. E. O'Grady, undertook the work of the letterpress and the plates were copied from the figures in Gould's great folio work "Handbook of the Birds of Australia" and reproduced by the three-colour process. This series commenced in the April number of the Gazette, 1910. In 1912 Mr. O'Grady severed his connection with the Department of Agriculture, and I was asked to supply the letterpress and supervise the preparation of the plates of this second series. October, 1915, saw the conclusion of the series, designed at that period for republishing in the form of a bulletin. The conditions affecting the output of all publications during the war period has deferred their reappearance until now. To make the work uniform I have added a chapter on bird protection and allied questions, and have rewritten the letterpress contributed in the first place by Mr. O'Grady. The plates for the present work were printed at the same time as those for the Agricultural Gazette some years ago, and the names (popular and specific) were worked at the same time. It has been deemed advisable in the letterpress, however, to adopt in some cases a later nomenclature. The popular and scientific name of each species, and the page reference to Gould's "Handbook of the Birds of Australia" (a standard authority) has been given; and for the field naturalist, for whom this book has been chiefly prepared, a reference to Leach's "Bird Book" has also been added. Among the works consulted in the compilation of this book, the following may be mentioned in particular : - "Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds" (A. J. Campbell), vols. 1-11, 1901; "The Useful Birds of Southern Australia" (Robert Hall), 1907; "Key to the Birds of Australia and Tasmania" (Robert Hall), 1899; "Wanderings of a Bush Naturalist" (J. Wheel right), 1861: "Handbook of the Birds of Australia" (J. Gould), vol. 1-11, 1865; "Voyage to New South Wales" (John White), 1790, in which a number of plates of birds are given with brief descriptions; "Birds of New Holland" (John Lewin), 1822, in which hand-coloured plates of many of our birds are given; "An Australian Bird Book" (Dr. J. A Leach, 1911), a pocket-book for field use; "Nests and Eggs of Birds found Breeding in Australia and Tasmania" (A. J. North), 1889, catalogue No. 12, Australian Museum. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.