INTRODUCTION. 77 



sixty-six really indigenous ; and this great relative 

 disproportion between the number of truly indige- 

 nous birds and the migratory species, occurs from 

 so many of the inhabitants of southern Europe 

 and the nearest coasts of Asia and Africa reaching 

 Great Britain as the extreme of their migration 

 northward ; and the opposite course makes the 

 great proportion of our winter migratory birds to 

 occur among the Grallatores and Natatores, which 

 travel southward, making our islands nearly the 

 limit of their range in that direction, while they 

 occupy the colder latitudes during the summer, 

 and perform in these solitudes the process of 

 moulting or the cares of incubation. Of the 

 Rasores two are now extinct, or very nearly 

 so ; three have been introduced ; two are summer 

 visitants, and one, the passenger pigeon, has only 

 occurred twice, reducing thus our indigenous list 

 by nearly a half. 



The progress which British ornithology has 

 made has been steady and sure, but it has not 

 perhaps been very rapid. It has ever been a 

 favourite study with the naturalist, and in Britain, 

 previously to 1800, had a greater portion of care 

 bestowed upon it than upon the other branches of 

 the vertebrata. For our present purpose of giving 

 a very short sketch of its progress, it will not be 

 necessary to trace it to a mere distant period than 

 1678, the date of the work of Francis Willoughby, 



