Note.
It may be proper to observe, that most of the birds in this second volume make their nests on the ground, in walls, or in the chinks or crevices of rocks; consequently, they could not be represented on shrubs or trees, with the same propriety as in the former volume.
The birds, also, which are the subjects of this volume, being fly-catchers, or such as feed on insects, and not on fruits or seeds, exclude vegetable decorations from the plates on which they are engraved.
Flies, being food of the birds, may, undoubtedly, on that account, be introduced with propriety; besides, making an addition to the number of the subjects figured and consequently adding to the value of the book, they have their economical use, in giving an apparent reason for representing the birds in such actions as best display the beauty of their shape, and the arrangement of their feathers. They also serve to occupy such spaces in the plates, as, if left without any kind of object, would give an appearance of poverty and emptiness to them. It is not meant that in every instance the insect represented is the food of the bird which it accompanies; I do not suppose, for instance, that the Nightingale feeds on the Tortoise-shell Butterfly; or the Hedge-Sparrow on the large Tyger Moth; but it may be from hence inferred, that both these birds feed on flies.
If it should be said, that the same attitude (I mean that of stretching after a fly or in the action of song) is too often repeated in the figures, my answer is, that there is no other attitude which they are capable of, in which they appear either so beautiful or so animated.
In the two families of birds which are the subjects of this volume, the Larks and the Warblers, such a similarity obtains between the species in each, that to write separate descriptions of the individuals is rather an irksome task. The description of one in each family, might almost serve for the whole; the bills, the feet, the size, the arrangement of the feathers, &c., are so near alike throughout each family, that the idea of them, when conveyed by description only, will be very near the same, however the words may be varied.
