XC1V 
INTRODUCTION. 
of flight, seasons of migration, favourite food, and 
numberless other minutiae, which can only be 
obtained by frequent excursions in the woods and 
fields, along lakes, shores, and rivers, and requires a 
degree of patience and perseverance which nothing 
but an enthusiastic fondness for the pursuit can 
inspire. 
The greatest number of the descriptions in the 
following work, particularly those of the nests, eggs, 
and plumage, have been written in the woods, with 
the subjects in view, leaving as little as possible to 
the lapse of recollection. As to what relates to the 
manners, habits, &c. of the birds, the particulars on 
these heads are the result of personal observation, 
from memorandums taken on the spot ; if they differ, 
as they will on many points, from former accounts, 
this at least can be said in their behalf, that a 
single fact has not been advanced which the writer 
was not himself witness to, or received from those 
on whose judgment and veracity he believed reli- 
ance could be placed. When his own stock of 
observations has been exhausted, and not till then, 
he has had recourse to what others have said on 
the same subject, and all the most respectable 
performances of a similar nature have been con- 
sulted, to which access could be obtained; not 
neglecting the labours of his predecessors in this 
