10 INTRODUCTION 



cient to produce a finished engraving; and many years of ap- 

 plication are necessary to enable a person, whatever may be 

 his talents or diligence, to handle the graver with the facility 

 and effect of the pencil; while the time, thus consumed, might 

 be more advantageously employed in finishing drawings, and 

 collecting facts for the descriptive part, which is the proper pro- 

 vince of the Ornithologist. Every person who is acquainted 

 with the extreme accuracy of eminent engravers, must likewise 

 be sensible of the advantage of having the imperfections of the 

 pencil corrected by the excellence of the graver. Every im- 

 provement of this kind the author has studiously availed him- 

 self of; and has frequently furnished the artist with the living 

 or newly-killed subject itself to assist his ideas. 



In colouring the impressions, the same scrupulous attention 

 has been paid to imitate the true tints of the original. The 

 greatest number of the descriptions, particularly those of the 

 nests, eggs, and plumage, have been written in the woods, 

 with the subjects in view, leaving as little as possible to the 

 lapse of recollection : as to what relates to the manners, habits, 

 &c. of the birds, the particulars on these heads are the result of 

 personal observation, from memoranda taken on the spot; if 

 they differ, as they will in many points, from former accounts, 

 this at least can be said in their behalf, that a single fact has 

 not been advanced which the writer was not himself witness 

 to, or received from those on whose judgment and veracity he 

 believed reliance could be placed. When his own stock of ob- 

 servations has been exhausted, and not till then, he has had re- 

 course to what others have said on the same subject, and all 

 the most respectable performances of a similar nature have 

 been consulted, to which access could be obtained ; not neglect- 

 ing the labours of his predecessors in this particular path, 

 Messrs. Catesby and Edwards, whose memories he truly re- 

 spects. But, as a sacred regard to truth requires that the er- 

 rors or inadvertencies of these authors, as well as of others, 

 should be noticed, and corrected, let it not be imputed to un- 

 worthy motives, but to its true cause, a zeal for the promotion 



