x PREFACE. 
except to beg of my readers not to condemn even the 
most mischievous of our feathered friends or enemies 
without fairly examining the facts on both sides. 
The arrangement I have adopted is that of Yarrell, with 
one exception, the Wren, which I have restored to its 
original place amongst the Sylviadw, where it seems much 
more properly to belong than to the Climbers. ‘This 
arrangement does not seem to me to be entirely satisfactory, 
but it is certainly as good as any of the others that have been 
promulgated, and is on the whole much better known. It 
divides our British birds into five great Orders: one of 
these five Orders is subdivided into four separate parts ; each 
of these divisions, as well as the remaining four Orders, is 
divided into families or groups. A tabular arrangement of 
the whole will be found on the next page. 
Of all these groups or families I have been able to 
include representatives, with the exception of the Strath- 
ionid or. Bustards, but some, of course, are much more 
fully represented than others. 
Those who desire to see figures of the birds I have 
described are referred to Yarrell’s and Meyer's histories 
of British Birds, to both of which I have repeatedly referred 
in the following notes. 
C. §. 
Lydeard House, Taunton, 
September, 1869. 
