LO ND O N :
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C.
P R O S P E C T U S .
T h e publication of the late Mr. Y a r r e l l ’s “ History of
British Birds ” was begun in July 1837, and finished in May
1843. The merits of the work having been at once fully
recognized, a Second Edition was called for in 1845, and
then a Third, which last appeared in 1856, but a few months
before its author’s death. A large impression of each has
been sold, and the work has been generally and deservedly
regarded as the standard authority on British Ornithology.
A New Edition is now demanded, not only by the public
at large, but by many who possess the other issues, and a few
remarks on the mode in which it is proposed to be conducted
may not be out of place.
The Second and Third Editions, with the exception of
some few though not unimportant additions and alterations
(to be presently mentioned more particularly), were, as a
whole, mere reprints of the First, which, as has been already
said, appeared some thirty years ago. Since that time, it is
no exaggeration to say that the literature of the subject has
been nearly doubled, while, even since the publication of the
last Edition, an extraordinary increase has been made in the
knowledge of our British Birds. Very many of the species
respecting which little was actually known in 1856, have
been traced by competent observers to their breeding-quarters,
and their habits ascertained, and, in some instances, minutely
recorded. The heaviest task in preparing a New Edition
of Mr. Y a r r e l l ’s volumes, is that of sifting among the
abundance of information supplied by the authors as w’ell of
independent works as of papers in Natural-History journals,