NOTE. 
Four of the shorter papers included in this volume and named 
below are reprints. I have to express my thanks to the editors 
and proprietors of the periodicals in which they appeared for 
kindly allowing me to use them : — " Exotic Birds for Britain," 
Murrains Magazine ; " Moor-hens in Hyde Park," Illustrated 
Sporting and Dramatic News; "The Eagle and the Canary," 
Gentleman^s Magazine; "Chanticleer," Longman's Magazine. 
Althougli the first named of these papers is here reproduced 
without alteration, it is, one rejoices to think, out of date as to 
one point; I refer to the fashion of wearing stuffed birds and 
birds' wings which women have followed for so many years past. 
This barbarous and destructive mode has now gone out, in this 
country at all events ; not, let us hope, for a season, but for ever. 
For the words on page 89, which have drawn on me some sharp 
rebukes, no apology is needed : they were never meant to be 
taken quite literally, and there was much to justify the spirit 
which inspired them, when they were written three or four years 
ago. 
