72 INTRODUCTION. 



and flocks of the Grallatores. Inland, extensive 

 lakes, in still more extended chains, with banks 

 steep and rocky, or fiat and marshy, furnish sum- 

 mer resorts to many others of our water-fowl. 

 The Alpine districts of the north, in many parts 

 still clothed with extensive primeval forests, and 

 mixed with ravines and rocks of the wildest and 

 most sequestered character, are solitary and secure 

 retreats to many of the Raptores ; while the exten- 

 sive tracts of moor and moss around, rear a food 

 for them, and are the natural habitation of the 

 Tetraonidae and the summer-visiting Grallatores. 

 Finally, the cultivated and champagne lands of 

 the mid-lands and south, a mingled expanse of 

 grove, and hill and dale, abound with the Inces- 

 sorial birds, and with the exception of the shores ; 

 are the chosen rendezvous of nearly all our sum- 

 mer and winter visitants. In the whole, we can 

 now number above three hundred species 



In a country of comparatively limited extent, 

 and moreover insular, and where within the last 

 hundred years the population and consequent cul- 

 tivation of the soil has increased so rapidly, a 

 change in the distribution of species, the diminu- 

 tion of the numbers or total extirpation of some, 

 with the introduction of a few others, might be 

 looked for. Every where this march of civilization 

 is most inimical to the retention of the native 

 animals in their proper haunts; they are either 



