Introduction. 
IX 
they trip on the green sward, and after having feasted on the grass-seeds, seem to be of all the family 
the real followers of Terpsichore as they flit and dance around each other with true bird delight 
Birds have been favorites of man in all nations and in all ages. The elegance of their form, the 
beauty of their plumage, their domesticity, and attachment to their friends, their ethereal nature, their 
sweet notes, all go to make them welcome to man, who, even in his most degraded state, has still 
something left of his primeval esthetics, and still some love for the handiwork of an all-wise and 
all-loving Creator. The prince delights to adorn his palace with gorgeous macaws, or with pretty 
love-birds ; the weaver of Spitalfields covers his dingy roof with pigeon traps ; the London boy rejoices 
in the possession of some disreputable-looking cock-sparrow, or of a linnet that seems to have known 
better days. Cock-robin is hailed alike in the old land and here,— 
Sweet social bird, with breast of red, 
How prone’s my heart to favour thee ! 
Thy look oblique, thy prying head, 
Thy gentle affability. 
Thy friendly heart, thy nature mild, 
Thy meekness and docility, 
Creep to the love of man and child, 
And win thine own felicity. 
In stately hall and rustic dome, 
The gaily robed,—and homely poor, 
Will watch the hour when thou shalt come, 
And bid thee welcome to the door. 
The herdsman on the upland hill, 
The ploughman in the hamlet near, 
Are prone thy little paunch to fill, 
And pleased thy little psalm to hear. 
The woodman seated on a log, 
His meal divides atween the three, 
And now himself, and now his dog, 
And now he easts a crumb to thee. 
' The peacock’s plume in pride may swell, 
The parrot prate eternally, 
But yet no bird man loves so well, 
As thee with thy simplicity. 
While we of these sunny southern lands have the representatives of this and other European 
birds, we still love to have about us our own specialities—our pretty cockies and our budgerrie 
gars, and that most amusing of birds, the magpie. Well has Alexander Wilson said, “ For to me it 
appears that of all inferior creatures Heaven seems to have intended birds, as the most cheerful 
associates of man, to sooth and exhilarate him in his labors by their varied melody ; to prevent the 
increase of those supernumerary hosts of inseds which would soon consume the produds of his 
industry.” 
, First in rank in the class Aves should stand we think our favorite family of the parrots. Generally 
made but a subdivision of the Scansores, sometimes, where only five orders are allowed, but a family 
of a tribe of the Insessores, we would promote them to a distind order of their own, placing them, like 
Mr. Blyth, in Bohns edition of Cuvier’s Animal Kingdom, as the first order under the name limited to 
themselves of Scansores; or as Dr. Brehm, giving them the quaint but expressive name of 
Ennucleatores (crackers). It is certain that they have little or nothing in common with the other 
