vi. PREFACE. 
different sources, it may be judged, has been enormous, and 
carefully as it has been done, omissions have probably been 
made which I shall be glad to have pointed out to me. 
I have attempted to combine in this volume the English 
book-names from vast authors, giving the history and _ first 
usage of the accepted names of species, and also the provincial, 
loca] and dialect names in use now or formerly in the British 
Islands, indicating the locality and meaning where possible. 
The Welsh, Gaelic, Cornish and some of the Irish names have 
been added, but in the case of the Irish names my available 
information is deficient. Under the accepted name generally 
have also been added what folk-lore, legends, weather-lore, etc., 
I have been able to collect regarding each species. 
A list of the principal works made use of has been prefixed, 
and it should be stated that the copy of Turner on Birds (1544) 
used, is the reprint edited by Mr. A. H. Evans. This work 
may be said to contain the earliest series of English names of 
British birds, an honour generally claimed for the list in Merrett’s 
‘«Pinax’’ (1666-7). The copy I have used of the latter work is 
the second edition of 1667, which, however, hardly differs in 
any respect in its contents from the 1666 edition. The copy of 
Willughby and Ray’s ‘‘ Ornithology” (generally quoted as 
“ Willughby ”) used, is the English edition of 1678, as being 
not only the one more commonly in use, but also because owing 
to its emendations and enlargement it is preferable to the 
Latin edition of 1676. This work forms the first great basis of 
modern British ornithology, and comparatively little advance 
was made after it, only three or four works of note appearing 
until the time of Pennant’s ‘‘ Zoology” (1766), after which date 
various books on British birds began by degrees to appear ; yet 
the English nomenclature, always confused and changing, 
through such popular works as those of Lewin, Bewick, Montagu, 
Latham, Donovan, Fleming, Selby, Macgillivray and others, 
resolved itself but little until the time of Yarrell (Ist ed., 1843), 
whose English names have been followed, with but few exceptions 
