PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. 



FROM early childhood I have been a lover of birds. 

 Their songs in particular seemed always charming, and 

 led to innumerable questions about the songsters them- 

 selves, to which I often received somewhat unsatisfactory 

 replies. 



When I was a little boy, it was my great delight to 

 go out with an older friend on what we called " an 

 ornithological walk," and there note all the birds we 

 could see and hear. Well do I remember creeping 

 cautiously to discover the possessor of the reed-like song 

 I so often heard in the bogs of Kilbarry, near the city 

 of Waterford, and my astonishment when informed that 

 it could proceed from no other than the Sedge Warbler, 

 our " Irish Nightingale" ! How often, too, did I endea- 

 vour, and unsuccessfully, to imitate the curlew's whistle* 

 with which my companion could, I think, deceive the 

 birds themselves ! When a book on the feathered tribes 

 was placed in my hands, with what fearful joy did I turn 

 over the leaves, almost too much agitated to note its 

 contents ! 



