xii PREFACE. 



that the Green Plover and Lapwing were one and 

 the same bird, and I have knowledge of some of 

 the younger generation shooting rare birds merely 

 to find out what they were. 



Although the damage done by boys is of little 

 moment, so far as the great majority of our rarer 

 birds are concerned, that done near large towns and 

 in thickly-populated districts, where even our com- 

 monest species, with few exceptions, cannot be 

 spared, is terrible to contemplate. Something 

 requires to be done to humanise our little country 

 urchins, the majority of whom cannot tolerate the 

 sight of anything so beautiful as a bird's nest and 

 eggs. From a fairly extended experience, I have 

 no hesitation in affirming that for one country lad 

 who takes a clutch of eggs to blow, preserve, and 

 study, there are fifty who take them for the 

 merely wanton pleasure of destroying something 

 beautiful beyond their powers of appreciation. 

 Besides breaking eggs and doing helpless nestlings 

 to death, some of them are guilty of the unspeak- 

 able cruelty of actually barring up birds sitting on 

 their nests in hollow trees with stones, and con- 

 signing the faithful creatures to a living tomb. I 

 would much like to see a really interesting and 

 well-illustrated school reading-book devoted entirely 

 to British Natural History, and the elder boys 

 taken out once a month and put through a lesson 

 in field observation, binoculars in hand. 



Our friend Dr. Forbes, Curator of the Natural 

 History Museum, Liverpool, recently suggested to 

 my brother the desirableness of giving, whenever 



