X PREFACE 



and a failing. One cannot, unfortunately, watch all 

 birds, and of those that one can it is difficult not to 

 say at once too little and too much : too little, be- 

 cause one may have only had the luck to see well a 

 single point in the round of activities of any species 

 — one feather in its plumage, so to speak — and too 

 much, because even to speak of this adequately is to 

 fill many pages and deny space to some other bird. 

 All I can do is to speak of some few birds as I have 

 watched them in some few things. Those who read 

 this preface will, I hope, expect nothing more, and 

 I hope that not much more is implied in the title 

 which I have chosen. Perhaps I might have been 

 more explicit, but English is not German. " Of-some- 

 few - birds - the- occasional-in-some-things-watching " 

 does not seem to go well as a compound, and " Ob- 

 servations on," etc., sounds as formidable as " Beo- 

 bachtungen iiber." It matters not how one may 

 limit it, the word " Observations " has a terrific 

 sound. Let a man say merely that he watched 

 a robin (for instance) doing something, and no one 

 will shrink from him ; but if he talks about his 

 " Observations on the Robin - Redbreast " then, let 

 these have been ever so restricted, and even though 

 he may forbear to call the bird by its Latin name, 

 he must expect to pay the penalty. The very 

 limitations will have something severe — smacking of 

 precise scientific distinction — about them, and the 

 implied preference for English in such a case will 

 appear affected and to be a clumsy attempt, merely, 



