Page:Nests and eggs of Australian birds 1901.djvu/23

 ornithology in Australia, and so prepare the way for a more permanent and elaborate work. My particular thanks are also due to the editor of that paper, Mr. David Watterson, for his encouragement to me in my work, and for his many kindly and unassuming hints as to shaping my thoughts on paper, more especially for readers not naturalists.

To Mr. C. C. Brittlebank my best thanks are due for his unselfish labours in figuring the original coloured drawings of the two hundred typical or rare eggs needed for this work. It wa.s indeed fortunate for me that Mr. Brittlebank combined the tastes of a naturalist with his artistic skill in the productions. Here let me say we decided not to figure white eggs, which are mainly identified by the grain of the shell, which it is impossible to reproduce in an illustration (except, perhaps, by photography). To have given plates of white eggs would have been to unnecessarily handicap the work. While on the subject of illustrations, I venture to hope that the photographic ones will not be the least attractive feature of this volume. To Mr. L. W. Hart, Working Men's College, Melbourne, I shall be for ever indebted for his sound instruction in the art.

I have to thank Mr. Edward A. Petherick, F.L.S., of London, whose interest in Australian literature is well known, for his hearty co-operation and invaluable assistance in the production of this work in England; and last, but by no means least, I here record my sincere thanks to my subscribers individually and collectively for having so materially assisted the book by finding the honest hire for the printers, Messrs. Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England.

My doxology. No work should be complete without praise to God, and perhaps more especially no Natural History Work, such as I am now closing, and in the execution of which the lines have fallen to me in so many pleasant places.

"O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom bast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches."

, Dec, 1899.