Widmann — A Preliminary Catalog of the Birds of Missouri. 5 



in summer, because reinforced by winter visitants from the north . 

 Winter visitants are those which are found only in the colder part 

 of the year and return to the north sooner or later in spring ; 

 when they are of regular occurrence and long sojourn in the same 

 locality every winter, they are also called winter residents. 

 Summer residents are those which pass the warmer part of the 

 year in our state, leave us in autumn and return in spring. A 

 few species may properly be termed summer visitants, because 

 they visit the state only for a short time after their breeding 

 season in a more southern home is over. Transient visitants are 

 all those species which breed farther north and winter farther 

 south, passing through our state in migration and spending more 

 or less time in the transit. 



Residents and summer residents are breeders; transient visi- 

 tants, summer visitants, winter residents and winter visitants 

 are non-breeders in the state. 



The terms used to indicate relative abundance may be defined 

 thus : Common means of such regular occurrence in all suitable 

 localities at the proper time that individuals can be found with- 

 out any effort. Fairly common, meaning moderately common, 

 is used to indicate that the species, though of regular occurrence 

 in suitable localities, is so thinly scattered that it requires more 

 or less search to find it. Rather rare means imcommon, infre- 

 quent, known to occur only in small numbers, requiring much 

 search. Rare means occurring at wide intervals. As the result 

 of persecution or adverse circumstance formerly common species 

 have been reduced to this state. Accidental designates those 

 which are entirely unexpected because extralimital. 



The catalog contains not only species and subspecies fully 

 authenticated, but also a few of such highly probable occurrence 

 that it seems only a question of time and opportunity to establish 

 the proof of their presence. This is a slight deviation from the 

 usual course of relegating everything not fully verified by cap- 

 tured specimens to an appended, generally overlooked, hypo- 

 thetical list. But since this catalog is in an initial stage, far from 

 completion, I hold it to be of the greatest importance to keep 

 constantly before the eyes of the student what should be done in 

 the way of filling the gaps. He should not only know what has 

 already been accomplished, but also what he can do in the 

 locality in which he works toward completing the list. When 

 visiting a new locality it is a great help to know beforehand for 



