X Preface 



are the birds — a love which cannot but bring with it more 

 knowledge and further enlightenment, a protection which 

 one trusts may in due time blot out that iniquitous habit 

 prevailing among a certain class of men, of shooting down 

 and destroying every rare bird they may happen to come 

 across. 



The contents of this volume are not intended to treat 

 of birds scientifically, but rather chattily, with a hope that 

 many who would not read a learned book on ornithology 

 will perhaps dip into what is simply a homely account of 

 some of the birds that I have kept. People grow a little 

 weary of discovering the same quotation time after time in 

 so many books on birds ; of what is said by Gould, and 

 Morris, and other eminent ornithologists ; weary, too, of the 

 long lists of Latin names and elaborate descriptions of 

 plumage, which are indeed necessary and instructive in 

 the deeper study of the science, but are not food for all 

 minds. 



As to the rough sketches which form the headings of 

 the chapters, there may appear to be a lack of appropriate- 

 ness when, for instance, a tufted duck is found as an 

 introduction to an account of such a totally different family 

 of birds as are the Indian shama and the magpie robin of 

 the East ; but these chapter headings must be looked upon — 

 like wild storks in England — as merely accidental visitors, 

 having something in common with their surroundings, or not, 

 as the case may be. 



The true subject of each chapter is to be found por- 



