ii PREFACE. 



different species. The varieties exhibited in the mode of flying, 

 the differences of manners, the dispersion and migration of birds, 

 were introduced to notice in chapters intervening between the 

 methodical descriptions of the orders under which I thought it 

 expedient to arrange the species. In recalling these circum- 

 stances to mind my object is simply to connect the past with 

 the present, and direct the attention of the reader to the con- 

 tinuity of plan, and similarity of execution, exhibited by the 

 two volumes ; not certainly to boast of my performances, which 

 I am convinced require not a little of that kind of indulgence 

 which the candid and considerate critic is always ready to ap- 

 ply to the productions of an artist who honestly and earnestly, 

 although not always successfully, strives to represent nature as 

 she aj)pears to him. 



In the present work, as in others, and in all my papers pub- 

 lished in various journals, I have endeavoured to adapt the 

 style to the subject, rendering it compact and precise when en- 

 gaged with technical descriptions, copious and florid when 

 treating of the actions and haunts of birds, abrupt or continuous, 

 direct or discursive, harsh or harmonious, according to the 

 varying circumstances of the case. My aim has been to amuse 

 as well as to instruct, to engage the affections as well as to en- 

 lighten the understanding, to induce the traveller on the road 

 to science to make occasional excursions tending to raise his 

 spirits, and to shew to the public that Ornithology is not neces- 

 sarily so repulsive as some of its votaries represent it. 



Seated on the brow of this craggy cliff, with the glorious 

 ocean and the boundless firmament spread out before and around 

 him, who, that has a mind sensible to the beauties of creation, 

 could look down upon the shelf that holds the fierce nestlings 

 screaming over the bloody prey which their mother has just 

 laid before them, and commence a description of the Golden 

 Eagle in the " plain didactic style" recommended by those 

 whose frozen heart never thaws, whose imagination is torpid, 

 whose tuneless throat emits grave and measured croaks, but 

 can utter no song of joy and love and praise. Hearest thou 

 not that sweet strain which the lone thrush pours from the 

 birchen thicket on the hill side ? Does no chord in thy bosom 



