PREFACE. ix 



Here I may say that while we have, wherever 

 we thought it would add to the interest and 

 value of the work, followed the advice of our 

 friend Dr. Bowdler Sharpe and given a picture 

 illustrative of the breeding-haunt of a bird meriting 

 such form of treatment, these additional illustra- 

 tions (which naturally pertain to our rarer birds), 

 whilst being absolutely faithful, avoid as far 

 as possible all chances of identification. In the 

 text, too, I have carefully refrained from supplying 

 such information as would be calculated to in- 

 crease a mischief already sufficiently acute and 

 disastrous. 



Eespectable dealers in natural history specimens 

 have, I believe, very little sympathy with egg- 

 collectors of the mere bric-a-brac order, and some 

 of them, I am delighted to be able to say, care a 

 good deal for the rarer breeding birds. Not long 

 ago I heard of one W 7 ell-known professional natur- 

 alist in the West of England absolutely refusing 

 to entertain an offer of some rare eggs, which he 

 knew to be under the supposed protection of an 

 Act of Parliament, and which he had every reason 

 to imagine were British-collected. 



Whilst fully recognising the immense value, 

 from an educational point of view, of a collection 

 of stuffed birds, especially when set up w r ith 

 the life-like actuality of South Kensington, it is 

 difficult to understand why, from a purely national 

 one, we have never given any practical atten- 

 tion to the effective preservation of the infinitely 

 more interesting and precious living creatures 



