PREFACE. 



This third volume, treating of the habits and appearance 

 of our Familiar Wild Birds, is prepared on the same lines 

 as its predecessors, which have met with such a wide-spread 

 welcome from the public. It is, unhappily, necessary 

 to remark that, as these popular chapters go further 

 through the list of British birds, they now come from time 

 to time upon birds which, once "familiar" enough, are 

 fast becoming no longer so. A few in these volumes are 

 now nearly on the verge of extinction ; but as their names 

 are almost household words amongst the population of one 

 part or the other of these islands, it has seemed all the 

 more desirable on that account to place faithful descriptions 

 and portraits before the readey 



