106. GREENSHANK (⅙ natural size) „ 312 107. COMMON TERN (⅐ natural size) „ 319 108. LESSER TERN (¼ natural size) „ 321 109. BLACK TERN (⅐ natural size) „ 323 110. GREAT BLACK-BACKED GULL (¹⁄₁₁ natural size) „ 327 111. GREAT SKUA (¹⁄₁₂ natural size) „ 330 112. STORMY PETREL (⅓ natural size) „ 334 113. MANX SHEARWATER (⅛ natural size) „ 336 114. FULMAR (⅑ natural size) „ 338 115. GREAT NORTHERN DIVER (⅑ natural size) „ 340 116. GREAT CRESTED GREBE (¹⁄₁₀ natural size) „ 342 117. LITTLE GREBE (⅙ natural size) „ 344 118. RAZORBILL (winter plumage) (¹⁄₁₁ natural size) „ 346 119. LITTLE AUK (⅛ natural size) „ 350 120. PUFFIN (⅑ natural size) „ 351 INTRODUCTION. The plan followed in the descriptive portion of this work has, I trust, the merit of simplicity. A brief account is given of the appearance, language, and life-habits of all the species that reside permanently, or for a portion of each year, within the limits of the British Islands. The accidental stragglers, with the irregular or occasional visitors, have been included, but not described, in the work. To have omitted all mention of them would, perhaps, have been to carry the process of simplification too far. And as much may be said of the retention in this book of Latin, or ‘science’ names. The mass of technical matter with which ornithological works are usually weighted is scarcely wanted in a book intended for the general reader, more especially for the young. Nor was there space sufficient to make the work at the same time a technical and a popular one: the briefest description that could possibly be given of the characters of genera would have occupied thirty to forty pages. The student must, in any case, go to the large standard works on the subject, especially to those of Yarrell (fourth edition), Seebohm, and Howard Saunders, which are repositories of all the most important facts relating to our bird life, gathered from the time of Willughby, the father of British ornithology, down to the present. The order in which I have placed the species, beginning with the thrushes and ending with the auks, is that of Sclater, based on Huxley’s classification, and is the arrangement adopted in the official list of the British Ornithologists’ Union (1883). The B.O.U. list enumerates 376 species; and of this number 211 species are counted as residents and regular visitants; the remaining 165 being loosely described as ‘Occasional Visitants.’ About these aliens, which are claimed as citizens, something requires to be said.