EDITOR'S PREFACE. 



The " Land-Birds and Game-Birds of New England " is, in 

 many respects, a remarkable and interesting book. Written 

 by a youth of seventeen, with, as I am assured, almost no out- 

 side help of either a literary or scientific kind, it found favor 

 at once, and for nearly twenty years has been ranked among 

 the authorities on the subject of which it treats. It has evi- 

 dently owed this popularity partly to the large amount of 

 original matter which it contains, partly to the pleasant style 

 in which it is written, and in no small degree, apparently, to 

 the attractive personality of Mr. Minot himself. Most of 

 the biographies relate to his own experience or impressions, 

 and in the main they are exceedingly well done, for, in addi- 

 tion to the essentials of good composition — unity of style, and 

 simplicity, terseness and vigor of expression — they are not 

 wanting in touches of a somewhat quaint humor and of unmis- 

 takably sincere and elevated sentiment. Their author had 

 a clear head, a true heart, and a weU-defined purpose, combined 

 with an amount of literary taste and ability very rare in one 

 so young. He was deeply in earnest, full of warm yet rever- 

 ent love of nature, wholly unconscious of, or indifferent to, 

 certain conventional methods of investigation and expression, 

 yet in the main careful in observation, temperate of state- 

 ment, and singularly logical and dispassionate in argument. 

 It is true that his literary style is marred, here and there, by 

 evident immaturity of thought and expression, and lack of 

 experience occasionally led him into statements of more than 

 doubtful scientific accuracy ; but these shortcomings have 

 been rightly judged with much leniency in view of the gen- 

 eral soundness of his work. Moreover, had our author been 

 older and wiser his style would almost certainly have lost that 



