ADVERTISEMENT. 



No branch of Natural History has been more cultivated 

 than Ornithology. The great beauty and liveliness of 

 Birds, the diversity exhibited in their actions and mode 

 of life, their wonderful migrations, the variety of modu- 

 lated sounds which they emit, the facility with which 

 many of them may be domesticated, the degree in which 

 they are subservient to our wants, and various other con- 

 siderations, render them objects of attraction to persons 

 of every age and condition in society. At no former pe- 

 riod has this study been more zealously and successfully 

 prosecuted than at the present day. A mere list of the 

 names of individuals who have written on the Birds of 

 Great Britain would occupy considerable space ; and when 

 there are among them so many who have in various degrees 

 contributed to the advancement of knowledge, it might 

 seem unfair or presumptuous to point out those whose 

 merits are most conspicuous. 



But, as the most valuable works are too expensive to 

 be available to students of every class, it has seemed to 

 me that, to promote this favourite study, nothing is more 

 wanted than a compendium of British Ornithology, a 

 work sufficiently extended to contain descriptions full 

 enough to enable the student to determine every species, 

 and of so small a size as to be conveniently portable. Were 



