PREFACE. IX? 



Of the Prose portion of the work it may be sufficient to 

 say, that a crowd of naturalists have, from time to time, 

 recorded a variety of useful and amusing facts concerning 

 Birds; — that to bring the chief of these facts before the 

 student, with the addition of many more from the author's 

 own resources, and olhers from intelligent and scientific 

 friends, and to combine them w\th familiar poetry, so as to 

 render the science altogether more attractive, and to ex- 

 hibit a useful epitome of it, have been the design of the pre- 

 sent undertaking, which, the author flatters himself, will 

 supply, at once, agreeable reminiscences to the Adult, and 

 elementary and useful instruction to Youth. Indeed, he 

 frankly avows, that he looks forward to its becoming an 

 every-day companion in our academies and our schools, as 

 well as at our firesides. 



Of his own additions to the Natural History of Birds he 

 does not wish to say much ; they are numerous, and, he be- 

 lieves, not unimportant : an observer of nature for more 

 than forty years ought to add something to our knowledge 

 concerning her works. That he has been assiduous in the 

 composition and arrangement of the volume will be, it is 

 presumed, self-evident; in fact, no labour, trouble, nor re- 

 search, has been spared. But that it is, even now, with 

 all his assiduity, free from error, he is, nevertheless, neither 

 so weak nor so vain as, for a moment, to suppose. 



The Notes contain notices of every genus and the most 

 important of the species described by Linnaeus ; and also 

 notices of the additional genera of Dr. Latham. The 

 Birds, indeed, described in this little work, are more in 

 number than all those described by Linnaeus ; so that, it is 

 hoped, nothing very material has been omitted concerning 

 this interesting portion of the animal kingdom. 



It ougiit, perhaps, also to be mentioned that, although 



