INTRODUCTION 



Following upon the daily exigencies of official 

 work, the preparation of this volume has occupied 

 the leisure hours of many years, and as an attempt 

 to show in one volume the precise status of every 

 so-called British bird, distinguishing the rare and 

 accidental visitors from the residents and annual 

 migrants, it conveys information of a kind which is 

 not to be found in any other work ou British birds. 

 Divided into two parts, the first portion deals with 

 "British Birds properly so called, being residents, 

 periodical migrants, and annual visitants ; " the 

 second portion includes the "Rare and accidental 

 visitants," and a special feature of the book is that 

 in the case of every rare bird a list of occurrences 

 is given, from the publication of the earliest records 

 (so far as has been ascertained) down to the end of 

 the year 1900. The reader is thereby enabled to 

 estimate at a glance the precise nature of the claim 

 which any given species has to be considered 

 "British." Some notion of the labour entailed may 

 be formed when it is stated that the number of 

 references in Part I. amounts to 1500; in Part II. 

 to 2325, and in the whole work to 3825, or there- 

 abouts. 



