PREFACE 



The ever-increasing interest which birds excite, 

 the ever-widening circle of students and admirers 

 they continue to attract, is most eloquent testimony 

 to the exceptional charm of Ornithology as a science. 

 Of all wild creatures Birds are incomparably the 

 popular favourites. Their engaging ways, their 

 comings and their goings at appointed times and 

 seasons, their gay colours, their beautiful nests and 

 pretty eggs, their domestic affections and ties, and 

 above all their wonderful music, attract the least 

 sentimental among us, arouse our sympathies, and 

 charm the majority of us to a degree unapproached 

 by any other living forms. 



The music of the fields and woodlands is one of 

 the most gratifying pleasures of the country. The 

 variety of these songs is great, their beauty a refresh- 

 ing and perennial one. But vast numbers of people 

 to whom the songs of birds are a constant source of 

 delight, know very few of these singers by name ; 



