PROSPECTUS. 



THE publication of the late Mr. YARRELL'S " History of 

 British Birds " was begun in July 1837, and finished in May 

 1843. The merits of the work having been at once fully 

 recognized, a Second Edition was called for in 1845, and 

 then a Third, which last appeared in 1856, but a few months 

 before its author's death. A large impression of each has 

 been sold, and the work has been generally and deservedly 

 regarded as the standard authority on British Ornithology. 

 A New Edition is now demanded, not only by the public 

 at large, but by many who possess the other issues, and a few 

 remarks on the mode in which it is proposed to be conducted 

 may not be out of place. 



The Second and Third Editions, with the exception of 

 some few though not unimportant additions and alterations 

 (to be presently mentioned more particularly), were, as a 

 whole, mere reprints of the First, which, as has been already 

 said, appeared some thirty years ago. Since that time, it is 

 no exaggeration to say that the literature of the subject has 

 been nearly doubled, while, even since the publication of the 

 last Edition, an extraordinary increase has been made in the 

 knowledge of our British Birds. Very many of the species 

 respecting which little was actually known in 1856, have 

 been traced by competent observers to their breeding-quarters, 

 and their habits ascertained, and, in some instances, minutely 

 recorded. The heaviest task in preparing a New Edition 

 of Mr. YARRELL'S volumes, is that of sifting among the 

 abundance of information supplied by the authors as well of 

 independent works as of papers in Natural-History journals, 



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