Birds of the Indian Hills 



Eastern Himalayas. The result is that he who 

 peruses this book will be confronted with com- 

 paratively few birds, and should experience 

 little difficulty in recognising them when he 

 meets them in the flesh. I am fully alive to 

 the fact that the method I have adopted has 

 drawbacks. Some readers are likely to come 

 across birds at the various hill stations which 

 do not find place in this book. Such will 

 doubtless charge me with sins of omission. I 

 meet these charges in anticipation by adopting 

 the defence of the Irishman, charged with the 

 theft of a chicken, whose crime had been wit- 

 nessed by several persons : " For every witness 

 who saw me steal the chicken, I'll bring twenty 

 who didn't see me steal it ! " 



The reader will come across twenty birds 

 which the essays that follow will enable him 

 to identify for every one he sees not described 

 in them. 



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