ERHAPS there is no subject on which a 
writer can discourse with greater certainty 
of carrying with him the sympathies of his 
readers than the Bird. So popular with all 
of us is this member of the animal creation, 
that we never seem to weary of details oi 
its habits, of illustrations of its mode of life. 
Whether we select a type famous for the 
J swiftness and gracefulness of its flight, or for 
the beauty and elegance of its plumage, or for its intelligence and its 
familiarity with man, we find our interest equally excited, and gladly 
give our attention to every particular that can be gathered about it. 
In our songs, in our fables, in our legends, in our proverbs, the Bird 
has a conspicuous share. Our groves and woodlands would seem dull 
without its presence. What would spring be without the swallow, or 
winter without the robin ! How dreary a mountain lake without its 
snow-white swans, and the rocky cliffs of the islands without the 
dusky wings of the sea-birds ! How much of beauty the world would 
lose if deprived of its humming-birds and its birds of paradise ! Would 
there not be a blank in our poetry without the joyous morning strain 
of the skylark or the full rich night-song of the nightingale ? 
I believe, therefore, that, whatever their defects, the following pages 
will find many sympathetic readers, if only because they are devoted 
to sketches of the Bird World. They do not lay claim to much origin- 
ality ; but they bring together a large number of facts and anecdotes 
