Our paper aims to establish publication dates of the monograph of Theodor von Heuglin which appeared in 57 parts over a period of six to seven years. Accurate dates for these parts would help determine authorship of some names that appear in two or three closely contemporaneous publications by authors dealing with new species of birds collected in north-eastern Africa. We have concluded that it is still not possible to date each part precisely, or even to be certain of the pagination of some parts, but that we can arrive at some reasonable conclusions as to which pages and which plates were published in which year. Due to the limits to our evidence these conclusions must be preliminary. So one of our objectives is to appeal for help in finding a set of this book still in the wrappers of the original parts, and, second, for help in locating relevant published reports of all books published in Cassel in the period 1868 to 1875. We are confi dent enough in our year dates that we list in an appendix the new generic names and species-group names proposed in this work. None of these names occurs within pp. 1 – 64 (which may have appeared in either 1868 or 1869).

Theodor von Heuglin, Otto Finsch, Gustav Hartlaub, Jean Cabanis, fi rst description, East Africa, precedence of names