SSI 
INTRODUCTION 
“ What knowest thou of birds, lark, mavis, merle, 
Linnet ? What dream ye when they utter forth 
May-music growing with the growing light, 
Their sweet sun-worship ? ” 
Tennyson, Gareth and Lynette, 
HE object of this book is not to add another 
to the histories of British birds, but to 
direct those who are fond of natural history to 
the manner in which the life of our familiar birds should 
be studied, as well as to point out to those who complain 
of the dulness of the country that a large and interesting 
field of observation spreads out before their doors. There is 
no need in ornithology to make long journeys or undergo many 
privations in order to find objects which will exercise all the mental 
faculties. Birds can be studied in the garden, through the windows, 
from a sick-bed. And let no one think that the life-history of even 
the ordinary birds of English fields and gardens is exhausted. The least 
research in books bearing on British ornithology will show an inquirer 
that the very contrary is the case. He will be struck at a very early 
period of his literary investigations by the unwelcome conviction that writer after 
writer blindly follows in the wake of his predecessors, accepting and recounting, often 
in the same way and almost the same words, what they state. Independent research 
is here the exception and not the rule. The birds are too often treated in a literary 
method instead of being carefully studied and observed in their haunts for a series 
