  Timing observations of 40 mostly young pulsars using the ATNF Parkes radio
telescope between 1990 January and 1998 December are reported. In total, 20
previously unreported glitches and ten other glitches were detected in 11
pulsars. These included 12 glitches in PSR J1341$- $6220, corresponding to a
glitch rate of 1.5 glitches per year. We also detected the largest known
glitch, in PSR J1614$-$5047, with $\Delta\nu_g/\nu \approx 6.5 \times 10^{-6}$
where $\nu = 1/P$ is the pulse frequency. Glitch parameters were determined
both by extrapolating timing solutions to inter-glitch intervals and by
phase-coherent timing fits across the glitch(es). Analysis of glitch
parameters, both from this work and from previously published results, shows
that most glitches have a fractional amplitude $\Delta\nu_g/\nu$ of between
$10^{-8}$ and $10^{-6}$. There is no consistent relationship between glitch
amplitude and the time since the previous glitch or the time to the following
glitch, either for the ensemble or for individual pulsars. As previously
recognised, the largest glitch activity is seen in pulsars with ages of order
10$^4$ years, but for about 30 per cent of such pulsars, no glitches were
detected in the 8-year data span. There is some evidence for a new type of
timing irregularity in which there is a significant increase in pulse frequency
over a few days, accompanied by a decrease in the magnitude of the slowdown
rate. Fits of an exponential recovery to post-glitch data show that for most
older pulsars, only a small fraction of the glitch decays. In some younger
pulsars, a large fraction of the glitch decays, but in others, there is very
little decay.
