2 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



greatly in numbers that he forsook that estuary or 

 haunt on the coast to follow them elsewhere, or 

 transferred his attentions to some other far-distant 

 point, where other wholesale killers had not been 

 before him. No, this is not a sporting record, despite 

 the title, and if long titles were the fashion nowadays, 

 it would have been proper to call the book "The 

 Adventures of a Soul, sensitive or not, among the 

 feathered masterpieces of creation." This would at 

 all events have shown at once whence the title was 

 derived, and would have better served to indicate the 

 nature of the contents. 



It all comes to this, that we have here another book 

 about birds, which demands some sort of apology. 



In England, a small country, we have not too many 

 species — two or three hundred, let us say, according 

 to the number of visitants we include or exclude ; all 

 exceedingly well known. For birds are observed more 

 than any other class of creatures, and we are not only 

 an observant but a book-writing people, and books have 

 been written on this subject since the time of Queen 

 Elizabeth — as a fact the first book (1544) was before 

 her time — and for the last century have been produced 

 at an ever-increasing rate until now, when we have 

 them turned out by the dozen every year. All about 

 the same few well-known birds ! To many among us 

 it seems that the thing is being over-done. One 

 friend expostulates thus : " What, another book about 

 birds ? You have already written several — three or 

 four or five — I can't remember the number. I don't 



