THE design of the Fur and Feather Series is to present monographs, as complete as they can possibly be made, on the various English birds and beasts which arc generally included under the head of Game.

Books on Natural History cover such a vast number of subjects that their writers necessarily find it impossible to deal with each in a really comprehensive manner; and it is not within the scope of such works exhaustively to discuss the animals described, in the light of objects of sport. Books on sport, again, seldom treat at length of the Natural History of the furred and feathered creatures which arc shot or otherwise taken; and, so far .as the Editor is aware, in no book hitherto published on Natural History or Sport has information been given as to the best methods of turning the contents of the bag to account.

Each volume of the present Series will, therefore, be devoted to a bird or beast, and will be divided into three parts. The Natural History of the species will first be given; it will then be considered from the point of view of sport; and the writer of the third division will assume that the creature has been carried to the larder, and will proceed to discuss it gastronomically.

The origin of the animals will be traced, their birth and breeding described, every known method of circumventing and killing them not omitting the methods employed by the poacher will be explained with special regard to modern developments, and they will only be left when on the table in the most appetising forms which the delicate science of cookery has discovered.

It is intended to make the illustrations a prominent feature of the Series. The pictures in the present volume are after drawings by Mr. A. J. Stuart-Wortley and Mr. A. Thorburn. All of them, including the diagrams, have been designed under the supervision of the first-named.

ALFRED E. T. WATSON.

The Grouse
The Hare
The Partridge
Red Deer
The Trout
The Phesant