PREFACE. 



FEW words will be needed to establish friendly 

 relations between one Nature lover and an- 

 other. For nearly sixty years, considerably more 

 than half of them spent in China, I have loved to 

 study the forms and habits of every living creature 

 with which I have come in contact, reptile life in- 

 cluded. Unfortunately, this has been possible, not 

 as a vocation, but as an avocation, during holidays, 

 travels, and odds and ends of time in an otherwise 

 busy life. During wanderings across the oceans, 

 through Europe and Siberia twice, through a third 

 of the United States, and along the ordinary Suez 

 Canal Route between Europe and China notes have 

 been made of such bird life as falls to the lot of the 

 traveller to see. 



These, however, are common to many observers. 

 Those specially dealing with Wild Life in China are 

 now put into popular form for the first time, and it 

 is hoped that, notwithstanding many shortcomings, 

 this may in itself form sufficient excuse for their 

 appearance in permanent form. I am indebted 

 more than I can say to "Les Oiseaux de la Chine", 

 the scholarly work of M.L'Abbe Armand David, et 

 M. E. Oustalet, to the late Mr. Consul Swinhoe's re- 

 searches, to ' 'The Royal Natu ral History ' ' (Lydekker) , 

 to Mr. H. T. Wade's "With Boat and Gun in the 

 Yangtze Valley", and to various other writers. To 

 the ever present, ever new, and ever delightful 

 stimulus of "The Field" and "Country Life" I, in 



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