Birds 101 



been observed. Yet they do not become established. It has been 

 possible, as noted in several places above, to perceive within a few 

 years that certain birds have increased or decreased, owing to the 

 influence of man. But man is not the only factor in the problem. 

 Nature is enormously complex, and we little understand the 

 meaning of many of the phenomena we daily witness. Thus 

 there still remains a great deal to do with Colorado birds, in ascer- 

 taining their precise habits, the nature of their food, their enemies 

 and diseases, and how all these things cooperate to keep them 

 within the bounds they observe. 



The osteology or study of the bony structure of birds, and the 

 description of their soft anatomy, still afford numerous oppor- 

 tunities for research. Attention may be called to the many 

 admirable papers on avian osteology by Dr. R. W. Shufeldt. Thus 

 in the Bulletin of the U. S. Geological and Geographical Survey 

 for 1882 (vol. VI), we have illustrated papers by him on the bones 

 of Speotyto, Lanius, Ercmophila and the Tetraonidae. In the 

 Journal of Morphology, 1889, he presented an elaborate paper 

 on the osteology of the North American Passeres. Subsequent 

 papers, up to the present date, have been so numerous that it is 

 impossible to indicate them. The student of birds, with these 

 papers before him, sees quite a fresh aspect of his science, one 

 little discussed in the ordinary manuals. 



Sclater, in his great History of the Birds of Colorado, does 

 not give authorities for the generic and specific names. I have 

 cited them in a number of instances, and when this subject is 

 considered from an historical standpoint, it is not without interest. 

 Thus I find that of all the specific and subspecific names used for 

 Colorado birds, no less than 88 were proposed by the great Swed- 

 ish naturalist Linnaeus, the father of modern zoological nomen- 

 clature. Although he thus named our birds, it is hardly necessary 

 to say that in the eighteenth century none of the specimens were 

 obtained within our limits. Reference has already been made to 

 the work of Thomas Say. Thomas Nuttall (1786-1859), who 

 travelled to the Pacific Coast and Hawaiian Islands, and is best 

 known as a botanist, named three of our birds. Alexander 

 Wilson, born at Paisley in Scotland, 1 766, emigrating to America 

 in 1794, studied birds with untiring devotion, and died in 1813. 

 His work was done in what we now call the eastern (and southern) 



