72 
INTRODUCTION. 
and flocks of the Grallatores. Inland, extensive 
lakes, in still more extended chains, with banks 
steep and rocky, or flat and marshy, furnish sum- 
mer resorts to many others of our water-fowl. 
The Alpine districts of the north, in many parts 
still clothed with extensive primeval forests, and 
mixed with ravines and rocks of the wildest and 
most sequestered character, are solitary and secure 
retreats to many of the Raptores ; while the exten- 
sive tracts of moor and moss around, rear a food 
for them, and are the natural habitation of the 
Tetraonid® and the summer-visiting Grallatores. 
Finally, the cultivated and champagne lands of 
the mid-lands and south, a mingled expanse of 
grove, and hill and dale, abound with the Inces- 
sorial birds, and with the exception of the shores, 
are the chosen rendezvous of nearly all our sum- 
mer and winter visitants. In the whole, we can 
now number above three hundred species 
In a country of comparatively limited extent, 
and moreover insular, and where within the last 
hundred years the population and consequent cul- 
tivation of the soil has increased so rapidly, a 
change in the distribution of species, the diminu- 
tion of the numbers or total extirpation of some, 
with the introduction of a few others, might be 
looked for. Every where this march of civilization 
is most inimical to the retention of the native 
animals in their proper haunts; they are either 
