PREFACE. 



The return of the Bittern as a nesting species to Norfolk, 

 so ably chronicled by Miss Turner, has afforded the most 

 striking and important event of the year covered by 

 this fifth volume of British Birds. To regain a former 

 breeding species, or to gain a new one, is of far greater 

 interest and value than to discover a new " straggler," 

 although the importance of such additions to our list 

 of British birds must not be minimized, for in these days 

 of close watching and wider knowledge, it soon appears 

 that many of these seeming " stragglers " are much more 

 often overlooked than detected, and their occurrence 

 may not be so accidental as has been thought. 



We have always believed that much can be achieved 

 in the study of birds by co-operation in observation, 

 and in this connexion we may point to the account 

 of the Distribution of the Nightingale, and the " Wreck " 

 of the Little Auk, besides the very excellent and increas- 

 ingly valuable results which have been the outcome of 

 the Marking Scheme. 



Before the next volume commences our promised Hand- 

 List (see Preface to Volume IV.) will be published, and 

 we are hopeful that the distributional accounts there 

 given may bring forth fresh observations where our 

 knowledge is noAV faulty or lacking. 



In the Introduction to the Hand-List, we have given 

 fully our reasons for adopting the International Rules of 

 Zoological Nomenclature by which the scientific names 

 employed are governed, and to this we must refer those 

 who wish to go closely into the question. But as we shall 

 follow in future in British Birds the nomenclature of 

 this Hand-List, it is due to our readers to give our main 

 reasons for adopting this Code which produces many 



