PREFACE. 



This volume contains descriptions of fifty species of Birds, 

 constituting the ordinal group which I have named Cantatores 

 or Songsters, and disposed into the seven families of Myrmo- 

 therinse, Turdinse, Alaudinae, Motacillinse, Saxicolinse, Syl- 

 viange, and Parinse. 



In again presenting to the public some of the results of my 

 long-continued examination of the habits and structure of 

 the Birds of Great Britain, I may be permitted to offer a 

 few retrospective remarks. The Introduction to the First 

 Volume contained, among other matter, a description of the 

 skeleton, the organs of flight, and the digestive apparatus of 

 birds, rendered necessary by the neglect of anatomy evinced by 

 our most esteemed ornithological writers, who in their treatises 

 have either expressly maintained, or practically shewn it to be 

 their opinion, that the inspection of the external parts is a 

 sufficient guide to zoological knowledge. In avoiding this error, 

 as I cannot but esteem it, I have not fallen into the opposite 

 one of considering an acquaintance with the internal structure 

 of animals alone necessary to their historian, but have entered 

 into details as to external form, and the texture and colours of 

 the cutaneous system, much more extended, and, if my efforts 

 have been successful, not less accurate, than those which I 

 have met with in any of the works alluded to, and have pre- 

 sented numerous facts relative to the habits and economy of the 



