PREFACE. iii 



Gordon of Birnie, Mr Barclay, Mr Brown, Mr Duncan, and 

 Mr Mactier, I feel pride in adding to the list of ornithological 

 friends. With them too I must associate on this occasion one 

 who, having finished his task of depicting and describing the 

 birds of another and more extensive portion of the globe, has 

 returned to his native land, Mr Audubon, to whom I am in- 

 debted for specimens of several of our rarer feathered visitants, 

 and of stragglers from America, of which I have failed in pro- 

 curing permission to examine those in Edinburgh. 



To Mr Macduff Carfrae I again offer my warmest thanks 

 for his liberal supply of bodies for dissection, and of recent and 

 prepared specimens for description. To Mr Fenton also I am 

 in like manner indebted ; as well as to various individuals, far 

 and near, from Oxford to Elgin, who have sent me eggs, nests, 

 and birds. In short, circumstances are now very different with 

 me from what they were, when, among the wild rocks of the 

 Hebrides, I commenced my labours, without aid or sympathy, 

 or when, twenty years ago, I first visited Edinburgh, where I 

 was unknown to a single individual. 



In this volume are contained descriptions of the birds to 

 which I have given the ordinal names of Creepers, Climbers, 

 Cuckoos, Plunderers, Snatchers, Gliders, and Darters, amount- 

 ing to fifty-six species, together with two birds omitted in 

 their proper places, and a species now first added to the British 

 Fauna. 



An Appendix contains observations supplementary to the three 

 volumes now published ; and at the end is a systematic Index 

 to the Land Birds, in which they are disposed in families, in 

 the order in which I conceive they may be most advantageously 

 arranged. With regard to what I have called Practical Orni- 

 thology, 1 have found it necessary on this occasion to be some- 

 what less discursive than I could have wished. The anatomi- 

 cally disposed student however will find an account of the exten- 

 sile tongue of the Woodpeckers, the organs of sense of the Ra- 

 pacious birds, instructions for making skeletons, and the usual 

 information respecting the alimentary canal of all the species 

 of which I could obtain bodies, illustrated by numerous figures. 

 In one of the chapters or Lessons under this head, is a valuable 



