INTRODUCTION. 
Of all the classes of animals by which we are surrounded in 
the ample field of nature, there are none more remarkable in their 
appearance and habits than the feathered inhabitants of the air. 
They play around us like fairy spirits, elude approach, in an element 
which defies our pursuit, soar out of sight in the yielding sky, 
journey over our heads in marshalled ranks, dart like meteors 
in the sunshine of summer, or seeking the solitary recesses of the 
forest and the waters, they glide before us like beings of fancy. 
They diversify the still landscape with the most lively motion 
and beautiful association ; they come and go with the change of 
the season, and as their actions are directed by an uncontrollable 
instinct of provident nature, they may be considered as concomitant 
with the beauty of the surrounding scene. With what grateful 
sensations do we involuntarily hail the arrival of these faithful mes- 
sengers of spring and summer, after the lapse of the dreary winter, 
which compelled them to forsake us for more favored climes. Their 
songs, now heard from the leafy groves and shadowy forests, inspire 
delight, or recollections of the pleasing past, in every breast. How 
volatile, how playfully capricious, how musical and happy, are these 
roving sylphs of nature, to whom the air, the earth, and the waters 
are almost alike habitable. Their lives are spent in boundless ac- 
tion ; and nature, with an omniscient benevolence, has assisted and 
formed them for this wonderful display of perpetual life and vigor, 
in an element almost their own. 
1 
