PREFACE. 



IN the following pages an endeavour has been made to 

 furnish as complete, accurate, and popular a Handbook of 

 British Oology as our sources of information and other cir- 

 cumstances would permit. The names of some species of 

 birds are introduced of whose habits little with certainty is 

 known, but we thought it best to present the reader with a 

 completed outline of our plan in as perfect a list of British 

 birds as we could prepare ; with the hope that the wanting 

 information may at a future time be supplied. 



It does not fall within our province to give descriptions 

 of the birds themselves, but these may be found, with refer- 

 ence to the more frequently-occurring species at least, briefly 



M8556O 



