PREFACE. 



On the conclusion of my " Handbook " I should like to say 

 a few words, principally in reply to some friendly criticisms. 

 The plentiful crop of works on British Birds, which springs up 

 year by year and apparently flourishes, renders it almost an 

 impossibility to write a book on the subject on altogether ne\\ 

 lines, as the story of our native birds is being told by a 

 hundred authors in a hundred different ways. Within the 

 restricted limits allotted to me in the *' Naturalist's Library," it 

 was manifestly impossible to produce a monographic work, 

 and therefore I chose the form of a ' Handbook,' a method 

 which possesses its advantages and disadvantages. Such a work 

 cannot be exhaustive, and I have therefore only tried to make 

 it useful, and I offer a few remarks by way of an " Apologia." 



Nomenclature. — The names adopted for the species have been 

 much criticised. Much of this criticism has been prompted by 

 pedantry, and a sort of hero-worship for the work of the 

 ancients, more by a child-like ignorance of the principles of 

 scientific nomenclature, and still more by a wilful and narrow- 

 minded intolerance of anything that seems to be "new." As a 

 matter of fact, nothing in my system of nomenclature is "new," 

 and any one who says so does but display his ignorance of 

 recent ornithological literature. It is, however, encouraging 

 to find that in the best-known popular journals, and even in 

 the best scientific publications of this country, little fault has 

 been found with the method of my " Handbook/' but a general 

 onslaught has been made upon the nomenclature I have 

 adopted. To the reviews in the scientific journals I have 

 scarcely any reply to make. The writers of the articles will be 

 found adopting my nomenclature in the near future, and if 



