INTRODUCTION. 



EVERY book published must of course stand or fall 

 by its own merits and the verdict of the public ; 

 but in the case of a book of this nature, made up as 

 it is of articles written from time to time, without 

 any settled connection made by the author, it is 

 perhaps not impertinent for those who know the 

 private history of the work to put forth an intro- 

 duction pointing out matters of some public interest 

 which would hardly be perceived from internal evi- 

 dence. 



From a purely " natural history " point of view 

 it may be well to point out that the author was one 

 of that valuable race, the sportsmen naturalists. 



He enjoyed keenly a good day's shooting, and his 

 greatest pleasure was to secure his bag by his know- 

 ledge of woodcraft, and of the habits of game birds. 

 Every note in the present book is the result of 

 personal observation, most of the material for the. 

 papers on " London Birds " having been picked up 

 in his almost daily walk from Kensington to West- 

 minster through the parks. 



There is another point about the collected 



