ADVERTISEMENT. 



I HAVE little to say in Preface to the following work on Field 

 Sports ; my reasons for producing it, at this moment, will be 

 found in the body of the book itself; but, once for all, it ap- 

 peared to me that such a work was needed, at this juncture, 

 and that its publication might possibly tend, in some small de- 

 gree, to avert the impending doom, which seems to have gone 

 forth from the democracy of the land, against game of all Sftrts. 



No one abler, or elder, seemed willing to stand forth ; so 

 " with all my imperfections on my head," I have ventured my- 

 self as the champion of American Sport and Sportsmanship ; 

 and — " what is writ is writ, would it were worthier !" 



I have here, especially and before aught else, to express my 

 obligations for what 1 have borrowed — the generic distinctions 

 namely, and descriptions of the form, measurement, and plumage, 

 of all the winged game of the Continent— from those' distin- 

 guished ornithologists, and good sportsmen, M;-. Audubon and 

 Mr. GiRAUD, to whose " Birds of America," and " Birds of Long 

 Island," I am greatly indebted. I have not scrupled, moreover, 

 to quote largely, on occasion, from Wilson's " American Orni- 

 thology," DeKay's " Natural History of New-York," and 

 Godman's " American Natural History," — and to all these 



