PREFACE. IX 



copied the descriptions published by me in my volumes of the 

 *' Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum," when I found 

 that I could not add any new information on the subject ; and 

 I have been guided by the excellent volumes recently published 

 by Mr. Salvin, Count Salvadori, Mr. Howard Saunders, and 

 Mr. Ogilvie Grant, while I am indebted to the writings of these 

 gentlemen for important useful information, much of which has 

 not been published in any previous popular work on British 

 Birds. 



Geographical Distribution and Habits. — In the treatment of 

 this branch of the subject, it is impossible to be original, and 

 the student will find little in my " Handbook " which is not 

 to be found in the fourth edition of "Yarrell," in Seebohm's 

 " History of British Birds," and other well-known works, 

 though I have endeavoured to give the latest knowledge on 

 the subject of the geographical distribution of our birds. 

 My life-work as an officer of the British Museum has natu- 

 rally been that of a " cabinet "-naturalist, from necessity, not 

 from choice ; but for a museum official, I think I have seen 

 more of the birds in the field than usually falls to the lot of a 

 stay-at-home ornithologist. Indeed, the reproach that is often 

 hurled at museum officials, viz., that they are "two-pair-back- 

 garret naturalists," is entirely undeserved, for, according to my 

 experience, they spend as much time in field-work as any other 

 professional men. Anyone looking through the published cata- 

 logue of a museum will generally find that the collections have 

 been enriched by the exertions of the naturalists in charge of 

 them in no small degree. Take the British Museum, for instance, 

 which is the institution at which the gibes of the opportunist 

 field-naturalists are generally hurled. After Lord Walsingham, 

 it will be found that the greater number of the groups of British 

 birds, with their nests, have been obtained by Mr. Ogilvie Grant 

 and myself, excepting some cases of rare species contributed 



