VI PREFACE. 



From the above sources we have been enabled to give to the 

 public a great variety of new matter, as well as new subjects, and 

 although this might possibly have been attained by means of con- 

 tinued Supplements, it would have required at least two of these as 

 appendages to the former ones, which would have so embarrassed 

 the whole, as to make it no easy matter to search after the complete 

 history of any single subject wanted. 



On this account we have resolved to begin this work, as it were 

 anew, and so to blend the old with the new matter, as to give 

 the observations and additions of many years at one view. Moreover, 

 had the publishing any further Supplements been resolved on, 

 we are constrained to say, that many of the possessors of the iirst 

 Seven Volumes would have had cause of complaint, from there 

 having been a confined number of copies printed of the Second 

 Supplement or Eighth Volume,* insomuch as totally to preclude 

 very many persons from completing their sets ; and it is the more to 

 be lamented, as this last volume was not a little interesting, from its 

 containing many valuable additions, besides a considerable number 

 of Birds, from New-Holland, not before described. 



* A little time prior to the publication of the Second Supplement, on finding it very 

 inconvenient to confer with my Booksellers so often as I had been accustomed to do, from the 

 great distance I then lived from London, I agreed to put the remaining copies of the Seven 

 Volumes, then published, into their hands, at a fair valuation; and finding it to be their wish 

 tliat I should fonn an Eighth Volume, from the additional matter I had collected since the 

 publication of my first Supplement, I furnished it to them, to be printed at their own cost ; 

 but not long after, I learned, to my surprise, that instead of 500, the number of copies 

 printed of the former Volumes, only 250 were struck oft". %Vhat end this was to answer was 

 known only to themselves, and I think it right to mention the circumstance here, to exculpate 

 myself from the blame which has attached to me on tliat procedure, and whicli, from that 

 Volume not being then my own property, it was not in my power to prevent. 



