PllEFArE. 



The idea and general scheme of this work were first entertained 

 by me as far back as 1895, and from time to time since then 

 I have worked at gathering up and piecing together the materials 

 until during the past year the work had gro\\'n to such proportions 

 and approached so nearly towards completion that I deemed 

 it Avorthy of publication. To saj^ that even as now published 

 it is complete, would be claiming too much for it, since with 

 such a vast field open to research, both in literature and dialect, 

 the possibilities of addition and correction are still very great. 



The first woi'k approaching the scheme of the present volume 

 was Swainson's " Folklore and Provincial Names of British 

 Birds," published in 1886, which contains nearly 2,000 local 

 and other English names, but the author did not attempt to 

 deal M-ith the important matter of book-names of species, and 

 moreover the work, useful as it is, suffers somewhat from not 

 being arranged in the form of a dictionary. Compared to 

 Swainson's work, Newton's 'Dictionary of Birds" (1893-6) 

 contains a great man\' less names, as might be expected from the 

 scope of the book, which was too wide to allow the author to 

 direct much of his great talent and research upon this limited 

 subject. Mr. Hett, in 1898, issued a short list of names in his 

 " Call Notes of Birds," and in 1902 he published a much more 

 extended list, containing nearly 3,000 names, although it com- 

 prises merelj^ a list of names A\ith the species they I'efer to and 

 includes manj^ mere variations and mis-spellings. In the 

 present " Dictionary " I have assembled, including variations of 

 spelling, nearly 5,000 names. Of course there are also partial 

 or local lists of names to be found in various ornithological 

 works and periodicals of all kinds. The labour of collecting, 

 collating and working up these names from a hundred or more 



