INTRODUCTION 
TO THE 
HISTORY OF BRITISH WATER BIRDS. 
In the preceding volume of Britifh Land Birds, the charadlers 
of that part of the firft great divifion of the feathered tribes, 
the beautiful tenants of the air, the Avoods, and the fields, have 
been deferibed, and their figures faithfully delineated. Amongft 
thefe were enumerated not only the carnivorous and rapacious 
kinds, which, by the accuracy of their feent, difeover putrid bo- 
dies at a vaft diftance, and thofe which, endowed with piercing 
fight, foar aloft in fearch of their living prey, and dart upon it 
from an immeafurable height, with the rapidity of an arrow ; 
but alfo the various other kinds of land birds, which, although 
lefs noticed, are eminently ufeful to man, by clearing the earth 
and the atmofphere of myriads of infedls, in every ftage of their 
progrefiive growth, from the invifible egg to the period when 
they are enabled to flutter on the wing. Thefe, together with 
the other branches of this great family, whofe lives may be faid 
t b 
