PREFACE. 



The plan of a work in which exactly two pages are devoted to 

 each species, may justly be called Procrustean ; and, unfortunately 

 for the author, the limited space at his disposal has often been en- 

 croached upon owing to the length of an engraving, whereas exten- 

 sion of the text has rarely been called for. Little idea, for instance, can 

 be formed of the labour involved in an article like that on the Cross- 

 bill, wherein the necessary consideration of the distinctive features of 

 several local races increased the difficulty of sketching briefly the 

 history of a remarkable bird. In this and similar cases, when four 

 lines in excess meant as many hours of hard work in condensing, the 

 writer has sometimes been tempted — in the interest of his readers 

 as well as in his own — -to deviate from the original scheme ; yet any 

 such concession must necessarily have led to an increase in the bulk 

 and the expense of the work. Even now, the low price is 

 due to the fact that the publishers own the blocks from which the 

 illustrations were struck for the four editions of Yarrell's ' British 

 Birds ' ; though to these have been added wood-cuts of many 

 recent wanderers to Great Britain, such as the Isabelline, Black- 

 throated and Desert Wheatears, the Barred Warbler, Wall-Creeper, 

 Needle-tailed Swift, Lesser Kestrel, Killdeer and Sociable Plovers, 

 and Mediterranean Black-headed Gull ; while fresh engravings have 

 taken the place of the unsatisfactory originals of the Marsh-Harrier, 

 Gos-Hawk, Merlin and Great Auk. Great liberality has also been 

 shown by the publishers in placing no restriction on alterations 

 whenever the slightest improvement was thereby attainable. For 

 example, a scrap of information, obtained by mere chance, led to the 

 re-writing of the article on the Blue-throat at the last moment, and 

 that too for reasons which nine in ten of my readers might, perhaps, 

 consider inadequate ; the tenth, however, would appreciate the need 

 for strict accuracy, and it. is his intelligent approbation that I have 

 striven to deserve. 



