THE NATURAL HISTORY OF IRELAND. VOL. II. BIRDS, COMPRISING THE ORDERS RASORES & GRALLATORES. BY WM. THOMPSON, Esq., President of the Natural History and Philosophical Society of Belfast, Corresponding Member LONDON: REEVE, BENHAM, AND REEVE, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND. PREFACE. THE first volume of this work comprises the various species of birds which are included in the Orders Raptores and Insessores. Under the former, are included the several species of the families of the eagles, vultures, and owls;-under the latter, those of the families of the shrikes, flycatchers, thrushes, warblers, tits, wagtails, pipits, waxwings, larks, buntings, finches, starlings, crows, woodpeckers, creepers, cuckoos, bee-eaters, kingfishers, swallows and night-jars. The present volume likewise contains the birds of two orders, -Rasores and Grallatores.* Under the former, the families of the pigeons, grouse, and bustards are included,-under the latter, those of the plovers, herons, the various genera comprised in the family Scolopacidæ, as the curlews, sandpipers, godwits, snipes, &c.; the families of the rails and phalaropes. *The species comprised in the three Orders, Raptores, Insessores, and Rasores, were treated of by the author some years ago-but much less fully than in the present work-in a series of papers commencing in the second volume of the 'Magazine of Zoology and Botany' in 1838, and continued occasionally in the Annals of Natural History' until 1843. None of the matter on the Orders Grallatores and Natatores (which latter will be embraced in the third volume) has hitherto been published, excepting notices of a very few species recorded as additions to the Fauna of Ireland in the excellent journal already named. |