IV PREFACE. 



barren waste, the cragf^-y rook, tlie marsh, the lake, and tlie river, are never 

 searched in vain ; eac^h has its peculiar inhabitants, tliat enliven the scene and 

 interest and gratify the observing mind. 



Sound knowledge must be systematic; not that we can give an approval 

 to many things that claim to be so. Fully aware that persons have been 

 frequently deterred by them from pursuing their studies in Natural History, 

 Ave would reiterate the words of Loudon: " Those Avho employ themselves in 

 disguising and degrading science by cacophonous nomenclature and a parade of 

 barbarous Latinity, which fools think learning, are entitled to reprobation and 

 contempt. There are many such in France, and some among ourselves — great 

 men in their little circles, they do well to make the most of this ; for they may 

 rest assured, that however high they may rank in their own estimation or in 

 that of their coteries, the world neither knows nor cares anything about them.'' 

 With no less propriety and force Mr. Vigors says of the student of such classi- 

 fication: " It is upon the labours of man that he dwells, and not upon the works 

 of the creation. He dwindles, as it were, into a mere compositor of the volume 

 of natiu-e, artificially putting together the symbolic words that stand for ideas, 

 while the ideas themselves, in their true meaning and spirit, escape him. 

 And thus the exertions which, properly directed, miglit have tended to explain 

 the laws and elucidate the operations of Nature, which might have been 

 devoted to a study purely intellectual, are lost in a pursuit which is strictly 

 and exclusively mechanical.'' 



It has, therefore, been the aim in the preparation of this volume to take as 

 extensive a view of Birds as its limits would allow, and to do so according to 

 a classification which may alike be easily understood and remembered. The 

 wish of the writer has been to combine tlie popular with the S(uentifio, 

 .rendering tliciii mutually subservient to the bcuefit of tlie reader. In doing 

 so, he has gratefully availed himself of the recorded observations of the most 

 eminent naturalists both in this and in other lands. He has the highest 

 appreciation of their labours, often prosecuted in circumstances of difticidty, 

 toil, and privation ; aud would ask it for them, of others. Many of tlicm hav(> 

 also conferred on us special obligation by accurately depicting birds of great 

 rarity to the eye ; some of thcs(^ ajjpear in this volume, and not a few of its 

 numerous illustrations liave been derived from (lie living birds. 



