PREFACE. 



IN these heydays of popular zoology, when eager young nut 

 uralists are coming to the front in crowds, and fine new scien 

 tific museums are starting up on every hand, there is small 

 need to apologize for the appearance of a work designed ex 

 pressly for the naturalist and museum-builder. Had justice 

 been done, some one would have written this book ten years 



ago. 



The rapid and alarming destruction of all forms of wild ani- 

 mal life which is now going on furiously throughout the entire 

 world, renders it imperatively necessary for those who would 

 build up great zoological collections to be up and doing before 

 any more of the leading species are exterminated. It is 

 already too late to collect wild specimens of the American 

 bison, Califoruian elephant seal, West Indian seal, great auk, 

 and Labrador duck. Very soon it will also be too late to col- 

 lect walrus, manatee, fur seal, prong-horn antelope, elk. mouse, 

 mountain sheep, and mountain goat. All along the Atlantic 

 coast and in Florida the ducks are being exterminated for the 

 metropolitan markets, and the gulls, terns, her. ms, egrets, 

 ibises, and spoonbills are being slaughtered wholesale for the 

 equally bloodthirsty goddess of Fashion. If the naturalist 

 would gather representatives of all these forms for perpetual 

 preservation, and future study, he must set about it at once. 



This work is offered as my contribution to the science of 

 /oology and the work of the museum-builder. It is entirely 

 "an affair of the heart," and my only desire in regard t<> it i- 

 that it may be the means of materially increasing the world's 

 store of well-selected and well-preserved examples of the beau 

 tiful and interesting animal forms that now inhabit the earth 

 and its waters. The sight of a particularly line animal, either 



