P E E F A C E. 



IN submitting these volumes to the public, to whom I 

 have the feeling that I am bound to be grateful, I have 

 not the vanity to suppose that I have materially extended 

 what is usually termed the science of Ornithology. I 

 have formed no system, I have followed no systematist, 

 I have drawn up no nomenclature of shapes or of 

 colours, and I have not counted the feathers, or the 

 scales or reticulations on the tarsi, of a single bird. 

 Therefore, I conclude, that my little book is without 

 the province of either the praise or the censure of the 

 profound. I should also suppose, that most of what I 

 have written must appear so ragged and incomplete 

 out of its connection, that my book will escape the in- 

 glorious martrydom of being hacked and hawked in 

 pennyworths, ere it has had even a chance for life. 



My object is a much humbler one ; but it is one 

 which to me is more delightful, and, in my opinion an 

 opinion in which I am borne out by long experience 

 by no means less generally useful. It is simply, to en- 

 tice my fellow Britons, of all ages, classes, and ranks, 

 who are not too learned for relishing the beauties of 

 nature as they stand displayed in nature itself, into 

 the fields, that they may know and feel the extent of 

 delightful knowledge, rational and even profound 

 thinking, and useful hints for every department of 



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