Excerpt from History of British Birds, Vol. 3 of 4 This Fourth Edition of Yarrell's 'History of British Birds' was commenced by Professor Newton in 1871, and continued by him until May 1882, during which time the account of the Accipitres, Passeres, and Picari was completed. In June 1882 I undertook to finish the work - not willingly or with a light heart, but after considerable pressure and at much personal sacrifice. There were various difficulties which could be foreseen, and not the least among them was the conviction that my portion of the work must necessarily appear at a disadvantage when compared with the high standard of excellence attained by my predecessor. There was, moreover, a stipulation for the completion of the work by June 1885; and, allowing for a pre-arranged and necessary absence of six months from England, this left only two and a half years for writing the history of nearly 200 species. The accomplishment of the task within the allotted term may be allowed to extenuate some slips of the pen which are corrected in the Errata. The Second and Third Editions were little more than reprints with additions, of the First, which appeared just forty-two years ago. 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."