DEFINITION OF A POPULAR BOOK. U 



I did not see how to overcome. But circumstances 

 often reveal to us that which direct inquiry cannot 

 discover. Such has heen the case in this instance; 

 and the result has been the publication of this volume, 

 which may be considered as the harbinger, and, in 

 some respects, a specimen of others. 



The circumstances are these : having undertaken 

 to supply a very considerable number of articles for 

 the third, or Natural History Division of the British 

 Cyclopedia, now in the course of publication, the 

 article " Bird " occurred in its order in the alphabet. 

 I had got some credit for a descriptive work, on a 

 portion of the same class of animals, " The Feathered 

 Tribes of the British Islands ; " and also for " A 

 Guide to the Observation of Nature," containing 

 more broad and general views, though described in a 

 light and sketchy manner. The article " Bird " I 

 felt to be one in which these qualities might be com- 

 bined, and the combination made to bear more upon 

 general science than either of the elements singly. 

 Therefore I set about it with some research, no in- 

 considerable degree of study, and much and hearty 

 good will. After I had made some progress in the 

 composition, and began to see the length to which 

 the article would extend, and the quantity of illus- 

 tration which it would require, it occurred to me that 

 a very little more would furnish a book which could 

 be offered to the public on terms highly advan- 

 tageous—such terms as might not again occur— at 

 least with the same subject. I mentioned the notion 

 to the Proprietors of the Cyclopaedia; they at once 

 adoptal it ; and the result is this volume of the 

 Natural History of Birds 



Of the matter it becomes, me to say nothing, 

 further than that, to the best of my knowledge, every 



