8 Introduction. 



member of the B.O.U., I honestly did try my very best to fall in 

 with, and adopt, the new scheme ; but I soon found myself so 

 hampered, so bewildered, so confused, so completely at sea as I 

 floundered on in this unaccustomed route, that I felt constrained 

 to get back to the old well-beaten path with which I had for so 

 many years been familiar ; and I suppose I am too old, or at all 

 events too old-fashioned, to accommodate myself to what is in 

 reality an uprooting of the principles which had for half a cen- 

 tury guided my ornithological studies. So I have returned to 

 the same classification which I followed in the Ornithology of 

 Wilts, and which was that pursued by the revered authors with 

 whom I was most familiar Bewick and Selby, Yarrell, Hewitson 

 and Gould. 



Some system of classification is, at all events, absolutely neces- 

 sary to him who desires to attain to a comprehensive knowledge 

 of birds ; and, indeed, he must not expect to gain even a super- 

 ficial acquaintance with them, or to grasp in his mind any 

 definite and precise idea of the positions they severally occupy, 

 without a certain amount of labour. The schoolboy, in his 

 research after knowledge, must toil through many a weary and 

 irksome task ; the linguist, in acquiring a new language, must 

 pause over dry rules of grammar ; the eminent statesman, the 

 victorious general, the brilliant orator, never gained their proud 

 positions without industry and diligence ; and so, to compare 

 smaller things with great, before we proceed to investigate 

 the several properties, peculiarities, and habits of individual 

 birds, it will be necessary first to understand thoroughly the 

 relative positions they occupy ; and in order to do this, we must 

 devote a little attention, which will be amply repaid by the 

 result. In Ornithology, as in other sciences, we must not 

 attempt to run before we can walk ; we must not rush headlong 

 in medias res. Step by step we must be contented to advance ; 

 but our way will not be weary, if we give attention to surmount 

 the little obstacles which at first sight seem to oppose us ; our 

 journey will not be irksome if we pause to smooth away the little 

 inequalities of the path ; and the more we advance, the easier 



