PREFACE. Vll 



known to require much instruction. The 

 author has, therefore, thought it far better, 

 instead of treating too copiously on that 

 head, to give particular directions for (what 

 gentlemen least understand) GETTING ACCESS 



TO WILD BIRDS OF EVERY DESCRIPTION. 



With regard also to gum, and the various 

 other subjects that form the remainder of the 

 book, he has taken up his pen with the de- 

 termination of neither borrowing, without 

 proper acknowledgment, from other works, 

 nor trusting to any thing from the experi- 

 ments of other persons. 



From having thus declined all assistance, 

 and wholly confined himself to the limits of 

 his own humble experience, he will have to 

 apologize perhaps for some errors, and no 

 doubt for many deficiencies. But even this, 

 it is hoped, will make the work less objec- 

 tionable than swelling its dimensions to an 

 unreasonable size, by relating incidents that 

 possibly never occurred, or commencing a 

 system of piracy on other authors, which no- 



