PREFACE. 11 



Pheasants, etc., respecting which, any particulars of 

 their condition and cultivation in the New World may 

 be useful to me. I am daily expecting to receive from 

 a nobleman, a present of Passenger, Senegal, and other 



Pigeons, to observe their habits in confinement 



We have here Fowls nearly, if not quite answering to 

 all those you describe. At the great Birmingham Show, 

 last December, (1849,) at which I had the honour to act 

 as one of the judges, there were several such. I pre- 

 sume that you have good Cattle and Poultry Shows in 

 the United States." 



Mr. Dixon is, from local circumstances, a man of more 

 leisure than the Established Clergy usually are ; and 

 his position, taste, and learning, afford him every means 

 of cultivating those branches of Natural History to 

 which his inclination has led him. We have, therefore, 

 in the present treatise, so far as Tie is concerned, all 

 that can be expected, on such a subject, from a man of 

 learning, taste, and experience. As for myself, I have 

 little to say, farther than that mine has been a conge- 

 nial and pleasing task ; the subject is one to which, 

 from early association and inclination, my attention 

 has been long directed. I have had my boyish experi- 

 ments, and the more mature trials of my manhood, on 

 many of the systems which I have since seen detailed 

 in the writings of the learned ; and it is to the result 

 of what I have found best in each of these, that I, in 



