PREFACE. 
IX 
copied the descriptions published by me in my volumes of the 
“ Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,” when I found 
that I could not add any new information on the subject; and 
I have been guided by the excellent volumes recently published 
by Mr. Salvin, Count Salvadori, Mr. Howard Saunders, and 
Mr. Ogilvie Grant, while I am indebted to the writings of these 
gentlemen for important useful information, much of which has 
not been published in any previous popular work on British 
Birds. 
Geographical Distributioti and Habits . — In the treatment of 
this branch of the subject, it is impossible to be original, and 
the student will find little in my “ Handbook ” which is not 
to be found in the fourth edition of “ Yarrell,” in Seebohm’s 
“History of British Birds,” and other well-known works, 
though I have endeavoured to give the latest knowledge on 
the subject of the geographical distribution of our birds. 
My life-work as an officer of the British Museum has natu- 
rally been that of a “ cabinet ’’-naturalist, from necessity, not 
from choice ; but for a museum official, I think I have seen 
more of the birds in the field than usually falls to the lot of a 
stay-at-home ornithologist. Indeed, the reproach that is often 
hurled at museum officials, viz., that they are " two-pair-back- 
garret naturalists,” is entirely undeserved, for, according to my 
experience, they spend as much time in field-work as any other 
professional men. Anyone looking through the published cata- 
ogue of a museum will generally find that the collections have 
een enriched by the exertions of the naturalists in charge of 
hem in no ^niall degree. Take the British Museum, for instance, 
'V uch IS the institution at which the gibes of the opportunist 
neict-naturahsts are generally hurled. After Lord Walsingham, 
wi be found that the greater number of the groups of British 
las, with their nests, have been obtained by Mr. Ogilvie Grant 
na myself, excepting some cases of rare species contributed 
