9C ,*l 



PRELIMINARY NOTICES. 



The favourable reception of Ornithologia, especially by 

 those who are judges of the science, has induced the author to 

 revise it, and to make such additions to it which the late rapid 

 progress of Ornithology has rendered necessary: those ad- 

 ditions will be found in the following Preliminary Notices; 

 to which, as the author has no wisli to shrink from the closest 

 scrutiny into the merits of his work, he has appended a few 

 Explanatory Observations on some objections that have 

 been, either carelessly, iynorautly, or wanton 1 y, made to it: 

 with a liberal and discerning public he has no doubt of the 

 result. 



Since the appearance of Ornithologia, in 1827, the 

 the public attention has been more than ordinarily excited 

 to Animal Natural History. The Zoological Society is men- 

 tioned in page 94. Its collection of living animals in the 

 Regent's Park is now, under suitable regulation, open to the 

 public at a very trifling expense, namely, one shilling each 

 person. The crowds that daily visit the Gardens are almost 

 innumerable. They are, at once, a fashionable, an agreeable, 

 an amusing, and instructive lounge ; and far exceed, in 

 exciting interest, any thing which could have been pre- 

 viously anticipated concerning such an establishment. 

 The members of the Society exceed, at the present time, 

 (September 1829,) 1300. The Museum in Bruton Street con- 



a2 



