PREFATORY NOTE TO THE 

 SECOND ISSUE 



THE present issue remains unaltered, save that some 

 passages in Chapter LXIX. of Part I., and XVIII. of Part 

 II., which were held, whether rightly or wrongly need not 

 here be discussed, to make the book less suitable for 

 general reading, have been left out or changed, and that 

 the Preface to the First Edition has been omitted. 



As the author's statement that many of the illustrations 

 were taken from life has been implicitly or explicitly denied 

 by some of his reviewers, it is here emphatically reaffirmed. 



The author's terminology and classification are not those 

 of official " natural histories," and some reviewers have 

 assumed that when he differs from the "authorities" he 

 must be in the wrong. He thinks it well to state that he 

 maintains the accuracy of every fact recorded in the follow- 

 ing pages. 



He has set down nothing save on the warrant of his own 

 observation extending over many years, or on the authority 

 of fowlers, ratcatchers, fishermen, gamekeepers, and the like, 

 whose work brings them into daily contact with the birds, 

 beasts, and fishes of the Norfolk Broadland. 



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