12 INTRODUCTION, 



milar to those on the exterior surface of their 

 shells. 



We have taken the liberty to introduce into this 

 treatise a few birds that are considered by some 

 authors as destitute of song, but which we know, 

 from our own experience, to possess a very sweet 

 warble. To these, perhaps, we should have add- 

 ed the lesser pettychaps, or chipchop, the greater 

 and lesser whitethroats, the gi-asshopper-war- 

 bler, and the large and blue titmice, or tomtits, 

 as some consider them song-birds ; but having 

 only heard the cricket-like note of the grasshop- 

 per-lark or warbler — the churring notes of the 

 whitetliroats — and the simple chipchip of the les- 

 ser pettychaps, — and no other warble from these 

 birds, — we thought it better to leave them out for 

 the present. The blue titmouse has a kind of 

 shrill song, but it is too monotonous to entitle the 

 bird to be ranked as a warbler. The great tit- 

 mouse is a better songster : indeed it has a low 

 warble, which we consider rather sweet ; but this 

 genus is so timid and wild, — at least those we 

 liave seen in cages, — that we think they are not 

 adapted to a state of captivity; because, though 

 they eat freely, yet they seldom, if ever, become 

 tame. Some think the lesser Avhitethroat an ex- 

 cellent warbler, and others say, that the lesser 



