Vl. PREFACE. 



different sources, it may be judged, has been enormous, and 

 carefully as it has been done, omissions have probably been 

 made which I shall be glad to have pointed out to me. 



I have attempted to combine in this volume the English 

 ftoo^-names from past authors, giving the history and first 

 usage of the accepted names of species, and also the provincial, 

 local and dialect names in use now or formerly in the British 

 Islands, indicating the locality and meaning where possible. 

 The Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish and some of the Irish names have 

 been added, but in the case of the Irish names my available 

 information is deficient. Under the accepted name generally 

 have also been added what folk-lore, legends, weather-lore, etc., 

 I have been able to collect regarding each species. 



A list of the principal works made use of has been prefixed, 

 and it should be stated that the copy of Turner on Birds (1544) 

 used, is the reprint edited by Mr. A. H. Evans. This work 

 may be said to contain the earliest series of English names of 

 British birds, an honour generally claimed for the list in Meriett's 

 " Pinax " (1666-7). The copy I have used of the latter work is 

 the second edition of 1667, which, however, hardly differs in 

 any respect in its contents from the 1666 edition. The copy of 

 Willughby and Ray's ." Ornithology " (generally quoted as 

 " Willughby ") used, is the English edition of 1678, as being 

 not only the one more commonly in use, but also because owing 

 to its emendations and enlargement it is preferable to the 

 Latin edition of 1676. This work forms the first great basis of 

 modern British ornithology, and comparatively little advance 

 was made after it, only three or four works of note appearing 

 until the time of Pennant's "Zoology" (1766), after which date 

 various books on British birds began by degrees to appear ; yet 

 the English nomenclature, always confused and changing, 

 through such popular works as those of Le win, Bewick, Montagu, 

 Latham, Donovan, Fleming, Selby, Macgillivray and others, 

 resolved itself but little until the time of Yarrell (1st ed., 1843), 

 whose English names have been followed, with but few exceptions 



