Xll PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



Before I was ten years old, I had commenced a work 

 of my own on my favourite pursuit, illustrated, too, by 

 my own hand. Vividly still do I remember one of these 

 illustrations, and the ease and speed with which it was 

 executed. It was the drawing of the Blackbird, always 

 my favourite. First the outline was rapidly sketched ; 

 then a small circle for the eye was drawn ; ink did the 

 rest ; and, in less than five minutes, the picture was 

 complete. 



It was not, however, my artistic powers alone that 

 derived their first inspiration from the study of birds ; 

 but my earliest poem must be referred to the same 

 source. It seems as if it were but a few years since 

 that, driving on my uncle's car, the coachman, with one 

 flick of his whip, brought down a pretty Chaffinch from 

 a bough over our heads, and suggested to me this little 

 impromptu, which I imagined to be blank verse, and not 

 unworthy of the theme : 



" Pink ! short was thy life on earth, 

 Torn from thy native woods, 

 By the cruel hand of man, 

 And numbered with the dead." 



Some few years after this, I became the fortunate 

 possessor of the first two volumes of Yarrell's British 

 BirdS) and thus considerably extended my boyish know- 

 ledge of our feathered friends. I made a collection of 

 eggs, and endeavoured, as best I could, to identify the 



