PREFACE. xix 
Patrons, Friends, and others, who were the Poffejfors of thefe things, 
that I might have no opportunity to impofe Falfiood on the World, withi 
out being contradiEied by living Witnejes. 
I have made the Drawings of thfe Birds direBly from Nature, and 
have, for variety s fake, given them as many different "Turns aiid Attitudes 
as I could invent : This I chofe the rather to do, becaufe I know <rreat 
Co7?tplaint hath been made, that a late JNriter on Birds had given his 
Birds no variety ^ of Pofure, but that they were direSi Profiles funding 
in the fame P ofition, which famenefs is difagreeable. 1 obferved alfo in hfs 
Trees, Stumps, and Grouiids, a poornefs of Invention \ therefore to amend 
that Part in mine, I have taken the Counfel and Afftfance of fome 
Painters my particular Friends, in order to make the Work not only as 
natural and agreeable as 1 could in the fubjeSl Matter, but to decorate 
the Birds with airy Grounds, having fome little Invention in them : The 
better to fet off the whole, I have in a few Plates, where the Birds were 
very f mall, added fome foreign InfeBs to fill up the naked Spaces in the 
Plates ; thefe I efieem no part of the propofed W irk ; never thelefs I 
have been equally careful to be exaEi in them both as to the Drawing and 
Colouring, Great part of the Birds, defcribed in this IF or k, were living 
when I drew them *, others were in Cafes well preferved and dry, and 
fome were kept in Spirits, which is the better way to preferve them, thd 
they cannot befo well drawn in Spirits, by reafon the Forms of the Glaffes 
alter the apparent Shapes of the Birds ; therefore I took fuch Birds out 
of the Spirits, 
In the following Defcriptions I had a View, particularly in defer ibmg 
the Colours, to exprefs myfelf m fuch Terms as the Prints might be 
tolerably colour d for the future by any curious obferving P erf on from the 
Defcriptions only*, for in that refpeSl I have been as. careful as I could, 
always comparing the Colours I mention to fome well-known thing when I . 
could do it ; and where I could not, I have tfed compound Ter ms, fuch as 
yellowijh Brown, redifio Brown, dirty Brown, and the like ; and to other 
Colours I have added faint, dark, middling, inclining to this, that, or 
the other Colour : all which things are very neceffary in Natural Hifiory ; 
for the fimple Terms Red, Blue, Yellow, &^c. fignify a vafi Number of 
different Colours. 
I Jhall 
