PREFACE vii 



4 Nature,' ' Zoologist," ' Nature Notes,' and other 

 natural history journals, and in the newspapers 

 and magazines. 



To return to the present work. Treating of 

 actualities I have been obliged for the most 

 part to gather my own materials, relying 

 perhaps too much on my own observation ; 

 since London is now too vast a field for any 

 person, however diligent, to know it intimately 

 in all its extent. 



Probably any reader .who is an observer of 

 birds on his own account, and has resided for 

 some years near a park or other open space in 

 London, will be able to say, by way of criticism, 

 that I have omitted some important or interest- 

 ing fact known to him something that ought 

 to have had a place in a work of this kind. In 

 such a case I can only plead either that the fact 

 was not known to me, or that I had some good 

 reason for not using it. Moreover, there is a 

 limit to the amount of matter which can be 

 included in a book of this kind, and a selection 

 had to be made from a large number of facts and 

 anecdotes I had got together. 



