No. 6. — Notes of an Ornithological Reconnaissance of Por- 

 tions of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. By J. A. 



Allen. 



In the following pages are indicated some of the results of field work on 

 the Plains and in the central portions of the Rocky Mountains ; these re- 

 sults including more or less complete annotated lists of the birds of nine 

 quite widely separated localities, with a general summary of the whole. 

 Although the region in question presents by no means a new field, the 

 faunal lists here offered form the first special reports that have been 

 made upon the ornithology of any restricted locality within the region 

 referred to at the head of this article. The observations on which the 

 following lists are based were made in 1871 (from May 1 to January 15, 

 1872), during an expedition sent out by the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology to the Rocky Mountains to obtain specimens of the vertebrated 

 animals of the plains and mountains of the West. The expedition 

 commenced its work at the Missouri River, in the vicinity of Fort 

 Leavenworth, and collected at intervals thence westward to the Great 

 Salt Lake Valley. Mr. Richard Bliss, Jr., of the Museum, accom- 

 panied the expedition as ichthyologist ; and Mr. C. W. Bennett of 

 Springfield, Massachusetts, as taxidermist. Both of these gentlemen 

 rendered important aid in the ornithological work, Mr. Bennett add- 

 ing to his zeal the qualifications of an experienced collector and a 

 skilful sportsman. Among the acquisitions of the expedition are over 

 fifteen hundred birds, representing about two hundred species, besides 

 large suites of nearly all the mammals of the region visited, including 

 all the large herbivorous species, large collections of fishes, many rep- 

 tiles and insects. 



An opportunity was thus afforded me of studying many species pf 

 birds in the field which I had previously seen only as dried skins, and 

 of examining large series of fresh specimens of many of the puzzling 

 forms of the middle region of the continent. From this has resulted a 

 confirmation of all the general conclusions arrived at in my recent 

 paper on the " Winter Birds of East Florida," * and the discovery of 

 several well-marked geographical races not previously chronicled. In 

 the woodlands of Eastern Kansas a decided general tendency to a 



* Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., Vol. II, No. 3, April, 1871. 



