PREFACE. 



TO-DAY we live with nature, and books on British 

 birds are very numerous, perhaps too numerous, 

 since many of them are but a repetition and often 

 a bad repetition of their forbears. Possibly, 

 therefore, the sole merit of these essays rests on 

 the fact that practically all the matter contained 

 in them comes from long, personal observation 

 and research. They may, indeed, be described as 

 "Field-Studies of Some Rarer British Birds." 

 Most of the species selected are really scarce, or, 

 at any rate, extremely local ; while one or two 

 notably the Kite are very rare indeed. All the 

 same, even by some ornithologists proper as opposed 

 to the casual nature-lover, most rare birds are 

 considered rarer than they are in reality. Of these 

 the Chough affords one good example, the Raven 

 another, the Peregrine a third, the Buzzard a fourth, 

 the Golden Eagle a fifth, and so on. 



A long Preface is out of place, so I will merely 



add that, wherever those dangerous adverbs 



* always ' and " never ' occur, they apply to 



personal observation only. This is as it should be, 



