PREFACE. 
Aviculturists in the present Century ought to do better work 
than their predecessors, inasmuch as they will have the benefit 
of the experience of many who have preceded them in the study 
of cage-birds. 
Twenty-one years before the production of the present little 
work, I was commencing to keep living birds. At that time there 
were few English books which could give any assistance to the 
beginner ; certainly none that could be regarded as general hand- 
books ; it was, therefore, only possible to acquire knowledge slowly 
and painfully, by many experiments, frequent losses, and con- 
sequently serious expense. Now that men who have laboured 
and suffered are recording the results of their work, as it is their 
bounded duty to do, their successors may confidently look for 
brighter and more prosperous times ; starting where the pioneers 
left off, they may continue to add to the sum of knowledge, and 
may hope eventually to bring the science of bird-keeping to 
something approaching perfection. 
The present hand-book summarises the results of twenty-one 
years’ study, and may, therefore, perchance be of use, as one of 
the stepping-stones to great^ things at which I have hinted. 
A. G. BUTLER, 
March, 1903. 
