ADVERTISEMENT. 
No branch of Natural History has been more cultivated 
than Ornithology. The great beauty and liveliness of 
Birds, the diversity exhibited in their actions and mode 
of life, their wonderful migrations, the variety of modu- 
lated sounds which they emit, the facility with which 
many of them may be domesticated, the degree in which 
they are subservient to our wants, and various other con- 
siderations, render them objects of attraction to persons 
of every age and condition in society. At no former pe- 
riod has this study been more zealously and successfully 
prosecuted than at the present day. A mere list of the 
names of individuals who have written on the Birds of 
Great Britain would occupy considerable space ; and when 
there are among them so many who have in various degrees 
contributed to the advancement of knowledge, it might 
seem unfair or presumptuous to point out those whose 
merits are most conspicuous. 
But, as the most valuable works are too expensive to 
be available to students of every class, it has seemed to 
me that, to promote this favourite study, nothing is more 
wanted than a compendium of British Ornithology, a 
work sufficiently extended to contain descriptions full 
enough to enable the student to determine every species, 
and of so small a size as to be conveniently portable. Were 
