xviii 



INTRODUCTORY. 



correctly. I do not pretend, however, to speak of what improvements 

 may have taken place outside these areas with which we have been 

 most intimately in touch during the last forty years, and of those 

 which we have not ourselves treated ; but I do know that great 

 advances have been made there also. 



There still remains something to be done in order to bring the 

 North of Scotland up to date and into line with the other areas. 

 For that I have accumulated much matter since the issue of our 

 first volume (dating 1889), as indeed I also have done for all of the 

 areas since the publication of the several volumes — i. to ix. 



As regards our second volume, it is desirable that I should 

 mention that the Gaelic names there assigned are often only of 

 local significance, and should not be accepted as of intrinsic values, 

 or at all final — as, indeed, Mr. Carmichael, who was the authority 

 then, has himself assured me. There is room for revision here, but 

 that would have to be undertaken by some one having knowledge of 

 that most intricate language, which, needless to say, the authors of 

 this series never had. 



In this same second volume we first advocated and announced 

 our plan of making our records of facts, as far as possible, chrono- 

 logical in sequence — a point which, I think, has not proved use- 

 less in the after-progress. 



But we dropped the practice spoken of at p. 12 (text of vol. i.) 

 of including a complete list of British vertebrate animals, because 

 that part of our plan received adverse criticism from our reviewers 

 and from letters of our private correspondents, though we intended 

 it partly to illustrate our chronological advocacy. 



In that volume we also advocated the use of square brackets — [ ] 

 — as a simple means of excluding such species as we considered 

 not deserving of unquestioned admission, but avoiding, as far 

 as possible, criticism of personal statements, except where such 

 could not well be avoided. In such instances we preferred to leave 

 it to ornithologists and naturalists to place upon these statements 

 their own interpretations as to values, from their own appreciations 

 of the text. 



Another advance we think was made, in that we began more 

 fully to realise the desirability of defining what we called " geogra- 

 phical position," in contrast or in relationship to adjoining areas 



