INTRODUCTORY. ) 



male which is most beautifully, or at least most 

 brilliantly, dressed ; as is fit, for he is in the front 

 ranks, fighting and making love, while her place 

 is in the sweet backgrounds of life, and quietness 

 and modesty adorn her best. Why civilised man 

 has proceeded upon exactly the opposite principle 

 is a question for philosophers. The male bird is 

 generally the larger and stronger, but this rule is 

 reversed among the birds of prey : the mothers of 

 eagles need to be Amazons. 



I wish to avoid everything technical as far as I can, 

 but some sort of classification is necessary. And I 

 have decided to follow that adopted by Jerdon. It is 

 said to be unscientific and out of date, and doubtless 

 it is ; but it is familiar (which is the main thing) and 

 all our bird literature was founded on it until lately. 

 Even now, though The Fauna of British India must 

 displace all previous publications as the standard 

 text-book of naturalists in India, Jerdon is not super- 

 seded. His three volumes contain an account of 

 Indian birds and their ways which has no rival yet. 

 Besides this, I must confess that I consider Cuvier's 

 classification (which Jerdon adopted with slight modi- 

 fications) is practically more helpful than any of the 

 tentative systems which are now competing for its 

 place. He based his arrangement almost entirely 

 upon the form of the beak and feet, which are the 

 instruments by which a bird makes its living. This 



J o 



is a simple and a sound principle, which we put in 

 practice when we recognise a Hindoo barber by the 

 case of instruments which he wears on his stomach, 

 and a coolie by his basket. In an Appendix will be 

 found some brief directions for the application of this 



