PREFACE. 
xiv 
justified ill dejiarting from this line in finishing the book, but 
have thought it would not he inadmissible to give as an 
appendix a few selections from journals other than those of 
the years in Shetland, adding likewise a page or two of the 
latter as a sample. Another appendix contains in a compen- 
dious form a carefully-revised list of birds known to have 
been observed in the islands up to the present date. 
There remains the duty of commemorating the labours of 
those who have already treated of the subject before us, and 
in this I cannot err in pointing to the signal services rendered 
by members of one especial family, that of Edmondston of 
Buness. Begun by Arthur Edmondston in the early years of 
this century,* greatly advanced by his still surviving brother, 
Laurence Edmondston,f and yet further developed by the 
talented and much-lamented son of the latter, Thomas Edmond- 
ston, ;{; — whose untimely death on the Pacific coast, when natu- 
ralist to the expedition of H.M.S. Herald in 1846, will be well 
remembered by many — the work of elucidating the natural his- 
tory of the group had made no small progvess when this one 
department of it was taken in hand by the Author, who, as 
brother-in-law to the last-named, had the advantage of access 
to the IMS. marginal corrections by which the lists published by 
him are very materially modified. Mention should also be 
made of the late Mr (Thomas) Edmondston of Buness, the 
hospitable entertainer of Biot and the French astronomers, and 
the ever-ready friend of science ; also of his successor, the present 
proprietor, of the same name and style, to whom my own very 
hearty thanks are due ; and, finally, of Mr Thomas Edmondston, 
juiL, the '‘brother-in-law ” so often referred to, who from early 
boyhood was the Author’s constant associate in his ornitho- 
logical pursuits. 
Other honoured names there are in Shetland which might 
with no less justice have found place. I must, however, 
* “View of the Zetland Island.s,” 1809. 
t “ Memoirs of the Wernerian Society,” 1822, &c., &c. 
+ “Fauna of Shetland,” Papers in the “Zoologist” for 1844. 
