PREFACE.
In presenting to the public the second of this series of volumes on Natural History, which treats of the many-voiced and many-coloured tribes that wing their way through the air, it is only necessary to observe, that the Author has pursued the same plan as that which he adopted in treating of the Mammalia. The systematic divisions of modern science are adhered to; and their distinctive characters succinctly, but correctly, and clearly given; while every Family is illustrated by the description, history, and pictorial delineation of one of its constituent species.
These illustrations have again been selected in preference from the Zoology of the British Islands; a course which has been practicable to a much greater extent in the present than in the former volume; for while of the forty-four Families into which the Mammalia are divided, only
