EDITOE'S NOTICE TO THE FOUBTH EDITION. 



ON undertaking to superintend a new edition of MTTDIE'S 

 popular work, we were somewhat in doubt whether the 

 whole should not be re-arranged in families and orders, 

 according to the ornithological system most generally adopted 

 by British zoologists. But on reflection, this plan was aban- 

 doned, inasmuch as it would have altered the character of 

 the work, which professes to be popular rather than rigidly 

 scientific. "I have formed," said Mr. MUDIE, "no system; 

 I have followed no systematist." Justice to the author, 

 therefore, forbids that such a tone should be given to the 

 work as would render it different from what he expressly 

 intended. 



Besides, as modifications in systematic arrangements are 

 perpetually in progress, the best would be liable, in the 

 course of time, to be superseded ; and it was, perhaps, in 

 this feeling that the author determined neither to form nor 

 to follow any scientific arrangement. 



No alteration, therefore, has been made, but what would, 

 doubtless, have met with the author's approval ; notes and 

 comments have been added, where necessary, (distinguished 

 from the author's own, by the signature M.,) but the de- 

 scriptions themselves have been left in their original purity. 

 A few corrections of nomenclature have also been made ; 

 such, for example, as the substitution of Gallince for Gal- 

 linid<B, and Grallce for Grallidce, terms ending in idee being 



