FOR the purposes of the present work, I shall not usually discuss the various orders of birds, but shall confine myself to families, as the limits of these are very well defined and generally agreed upon by ornithologists, while with regard to the orders hardly any two books agree. The scientific names employed will be those of the bird volumes of the Fauna of British India for Indian Birds ; while for the foreign species which I shall have occasion to deal with I shall use those of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds. Names of birds not occurring wild in the Indian Empire are marked with an asterisk.

And here a few words on the subject of the classifica- tory terms employed by naturalists may not be out of place, as they are not always understood by beginners.

A species is a collection of individuals which reproduce others like themselves. Thus, over most of India we find numbers of green Parrots with long, pointed tails, and if we watch the domestic affairs of these we shall discover that their young, as a rule, preserve the same type. All these birds, therefore, we group as a species, called in English the Rose-ringed Parrakeet, from the pink ring on the neck of the males. In some places we shall come across a smaller Parrakeet, of the same general shape, but with the head of a strikingly different colour from the body plum-colour in the male and dull purple in the female. If we attend to the propagation of these we shall discover that their young in turn resemble them, although the coloured head takes some time to develop.  These, then, form another species, called the Plum-headed Parrakeet.

Further research will show us yet other kinds, all agree- ing in general shape, but differing slightly in proportions, and more in colour. We group all these together as a genus ; in popular language, they are all birds of the same style, though each species, or collection of individuals, differs in certain details which are peculiar to it.

If we examine the Parrakeets brought from Australia, we shall observe that while they can be divided up into groups of individuals, forming species, which groups differ in colour even more strikingly than our Indian birds, yet many of them agree closely in certain details which mark them off as another group or genus. Thus, though their tails are long and pointed, they are very much shorter and broader than those of the Indian Parrakeets ; their legs are longer, and, if we come to keep and observe them, we shall find their movements arerather different. So we say they are birds of another genus or style.

Yet it is perfectly obvious that both of these collec- tions of species have much in common there is a fami- ly resemblance between them, as we say. Hence, the Indian green long-tailed Parrakeets, and the Australian many-coloured broad-tailed Parrakeets, are both said to belong to the family Psittacidce.

The classical name is used in order to make our books intelligible to naturalists all over the world, who may not know our particular language. So, also, we use a special word, compounded from two Greek ones to express the long-tailed green Parrakeets of India Palceornis. This means “ the bird of old,” these Parrots having been the first known to the ancients, who called them by the name Psittacus, which means Parrot. The word Psittacidcp means “ the family of Psittacus “ the Parrot clan, so to speak.

The Australian branch of the clan is also designated by a compound Greek name Platycercus, meaning “ broad-tailed.” This name is of course of modern invention, though on classical lines.

In order to designate the species, a specific name, generally Latin, is tacked on to the name of the genus.  Thus, the Rose-ringed Parrakeet is called Palceornis torquatus, torquatus meaning “ ringed.” The plum-head- ed is called Palceornis cyanocephalus, cyanocephalus (which happens to be Greek) meaning blue-headed.

Similarly, the most familiar species of broad-tailed Australian Parrakeet, known in English as the Rosella, is called in scientific language Platycercus eximius, eximius being a Latin word meaning “excellent,” on account of the striking beauty of this showy bird. In commencing this subject, I mentioned that indivi- duals of a species usually produced young like themselves.  But they do not always do so ; the Ring-necked Parra- keet, for instance, not unfrequently produces a yellow young bird, quite different from its ordinary green off- spring. Such an individual is said to belong to a variety of the species ; it came from green parents, and for all we know, may, if it has the chance, produce green young in its turn may “ throw back,” as breeders say.

If, however, common green Parrakeets never produced yellow young, and if in a certain district, all the Parra- keets of a certain Palwornis type were yellow, we should call this a species ; it would probably be known as Palwornis luteus, luteus being the Latin for “ yellow’ We should presume that these birds were the offspring of yellow parents, and would in their turn produce yellow young would “ breed true,” as is commonly said. Every variety, therefore, has a chance of becoming a species, and every species must have once been a variety, if the theory of the evolution of species from pre-existing species be admitted, as it is generally now-a-days.
It will thus be seen that the distinction between species and variety is a piece of zoological snobbery, so to speak ; if a bird’s antecedents are all right and a likeness has been handed down from father to son indefinitely, as far as we can see, he belongs to a “ good species : “ but if he is convicted of having sprung from parents unlike himself, he is a mere parvenu, stigmatized as a “ variety,” “ aberration,” or “ sport.”
Of course, such varieties have often been fixed by breed- ing from them in captivity, as we shall see later ; and the work of bird-fanciers and stock-breeders in this direction has been of an importance which has never yet received its due meed of praise and encouragement, considering that by studying it Darwin was able to demonstrate the possibility of the production of one form from another, and thus to raise the study of zoology from a mere pastime to a philosophy oi life.
The name descriptive of the particular species is, it will be seen, placed under that of the genus, although the opposite obtains in English and Hindustani. This is simply because in Latin the adjective always follows the substantive, as in so many other languages ; and all scientific nomenclature follows the rules of Latin Gram- mar, although the words are more often than not adopted from the Greek. Besides which, it is certainly a great convenience to have the generic name first, just as in indexing a number of people’s names one reverses the usual order and puts the surname before the Christian name.
If we carry our investigations into Parrots further, we shall find a number of species, grouped again into genera- tions which differ very much from the Indian long-tails and Australian broad-tails. They have brush-tipped tongues, run a great deal to red in colour, have a peculiar smell, a sharp cry, and live on soft food, not on grain.

They are, we may say, quite a different family altogether, and we give them a different family name, the Lories (Loriidcz). This, of coarse, means the family of Lorius.  the native name Lori turned into Latin as the Romans would have done it, if the) had ever seen a Lory.
But still the Lories are obviously Parrots of a sort, and so we group their family, and the other family of Psittacidce, together, and call the whole collection the order of Parrots (Psittaci).
Thus, a collection of similar individuals make a species ; collections of species, having a great deal in common but differing in details, make a genus ; collections of genera bearing a certain resemblance, make a family ; and collections of families also agreeing in certain im- portant points, make an order.
The various orders in conjunction with each other make up the class of birds, which may be at once denned as feathered animals, no other creature living or extinct possessing feathers. A bony skeleton is shared by birds with beasts, reptiles, and fishes, and in their general ana- tomy they approach reptiles more closely than any other class of backboned animals ; it will be remembered also that reptiles, on their part, lay eggs like birds.
I shall conclude this chapter with a list of works of reference for those who may wish to go further into the
subject than I am here taking them.
For the general subject of classification, anatomy, etc., the best books are Professor A. Newton’s Dictionary of Birds, and Mr. F. E. Beddard’s Structure and Classi- fication of Birds.
For Indian Birds, the Fauna of British India, the four volumes dealing with birds. Dr. Jerdon’s Birds of India is admirable, but out of print. Of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds, Volume XX, by Count T. Salvador!, which treats of the Parrots of the world, will be most useful. For the management of many foreign species beyond those which are mentioned here, Dr. A. G. Butler’s Foreign Finches in Captivity, and Foreign Bird-keeping may be profitably consulted.