VI 
PREFACE. 
of Curator of the Botanic Garden and Lecturer on 
Natural History at Harvard University. In 1842 he 
returned to England, where he resided until his death 
in 1859, at the age of seventy-three. 
The first volume of the “ Manual,” containing an 
account of the Land Birds, was published in 1832, and 
a second edition, with some additional matter, appeared 
in 1840. The second volume, of which one edition only 
was issued, came out in 1834. 
The “ Manual” was the first hand-book of the subject 
that had been published, and its delightful sketches of 
bird-life and its fragrance of the field and forest carried 
it into immediate favor. But Nuttall was more than a 
mere lover of Nature, he had considerable scientific at- 
tainment; and though he appears to have enjoyed the 
study of bird-life more than he did the musty side of 
ornithology, with its dried skins and drier technicalities, 
he had an eye trained for careful observation and a stu- 
dent’s respect for exact statement. It was this rare com- 
bination that gave to Nuttall’s work its real value; and 
these chapters of his are still valuable, — much too valu- 
able to be lost ; for if a great advance has been made in 
the study of scientific ornithology, — which term repre- 
sents only the science of bird-skins, the names by which 
they are labelled, and the sequence of these names, 
in other words, the classification of birds, — if this science 
has advanced far beyond Nuttall’s work, the study of 
bird-life, the real history of our birds, remains just about 
where Nuttall and his contemporaries left it. The pres- 
ent generation of working ornithologists have been too 
busy in hunting up new species and in variety-making 
