PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 
Tuis is mainly a book about the Birds, or more 
properly an invitation to the study of Ornithology, 
and the purpose of the author will be carried out in 
proportion as it awakens and stimulates the interest 
of the reader in this branch of Natural History. 
Though written less in the spirit of exact science 
than with the freedom of love and old acquaintance, 
yet I have in no instance taken liberties with facts, 
or allowed my imagination to influence me to the 
extent of giving a false impression or a wrong color- 
ing. I have reaped my harvest more in the woods 
than in the study; what I offer, in fact, is a careful 
and conscientious record of actual observations and 
experiences, and is true as it stands written, every 
word of it. But what has interested me most in 
Ornithology is the pursuit, the chase, the discovery ; 
that part of it which is akin to hunting, fishing, and 
wild sports, and which I could carry with me in my 
eye and ear wherever I went. 
I cannot answer with much confidence the poet’s 
inquiry, 
“Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?” 
