Excerpt from Hand-Book to the Birds of Great Britain, Vol. 1 Every ornithologist who, in the course of his career, may be called upon to write a book upon British Birds, will always find this to be one of the most interesting, but certainly one of the most difficult, tasks which he has ever undertaken. He is sure to discover that not only is the path well-worn, but that the work of his many predecessors has been so well done that little chance of originality remains to him. No country in the world has had more excellent books written about its birds than Great Britain, whether we consider illustrated works, such as those of Selby and Gould, or the attractive "Coloured Figures of British Birds," now being published by Lord Lil-ford; or the many exhaustive books on the life-histories of our native birds, such as those of Macgillivray, Yarrell, and others; or the excellent works on eggs published by Hewitson and Seebohm. Of the two leading publications on the subject, viz., those of Macgillivray and Yarrell, the palm for scientific merit must be given to that of the Scotch naturalist, and the increasing value of his works, day by day and year by year, testifies to an appreciation of his labour which would have gladdened and cheered him in his work, had such regard been bestowed upon him during his lifetime. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.