xxvi INTRODUCTION 



Food. — Food notes have been made up mainly from Bendire's 

 Life Histories, Fisher's Hawks and Owls of the United States, Goss's 

 Birds of Kansas, and the records of the Biological Survey. 



Distribution. — The distributions have been compiled from the 

 manuscript maps and reports of the Biological Survey, and the North 

 American Fauna, (3) San Francisco Mountain, Arizona ; (7) Death 

 Valley, and (16) Mount Shasta, California; (23) Hudson Bay; (5) 

 Idaho; (21) The Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia; and 

 (14) The Tres Marias Islands, Mexico; The A. 0. U. Check-List of 

 North American Birds; Belding's Land Birds of California; Bendire's 

 Life Histories of North American Birds; Bruner's Birds of Nebraska ; 

 Bryant's Birds and Eggs of the Farallon Islands; Cooke's Bird Mi 

 gration in the Mississippi Valley, and Birds of Colorado; Fannin's 

 Check-List of British Columbia Birds; Goss's Birds of Kansas; Grin- 

 nell's Birds of the Pacific Slope of Los Angeles County; Loomis's Cali- 

 fornia Water Birds; Macoun's Catalogue of Canadian Birds; Mc- 

 Gregor's Pacific Coast Avifauna; and Sillo way's Summer Birds of 

 Flathead Lake, Montana; together with local lists in The Auk, The 

 Bulletin of the Cooper Ornithological Club, The Condor, and The 

 Osprey. 



Illustrations. — The new heads and full figures of birds are by 

 Louis Agassiz Fuertes, the outlines by Miss Frauceska Weiser, the 

 old material from drawings of Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Ernest Thomp- 

 son Seton, Robert Ridgway, John L. Ridgway, and Frank Bond, 

 published previously by the Smithsonian Institution, the Biological 

 Survey, The Auk, The Osprey, and Houghton, Mifiiiu & Company 

 in Birds of Village and Field and A-Birding on a Bronco. 



COLLECTING AND PREPARING BIRDS, NESTS, 



AND EGGS. 



By Vernon Bailey. 



Collecting Birds. — Our present knowledge of birds and their 

 classification has come from a study of specimens, of the dead bird 

 in the flesh, of crops and stomachs, stuffed skins, and skeletons ; 

 and without this foundation the study of birds would not have its 

 deep interest and meaning nor its practical bearing on the economy 

 of our lives. Even our enjoyment of the birds in life, their beauty, 

 song, and friendship, would be far less than it is without the un- 

 derlying knowledge of their life history, the place they fill, and 

 their importance to us. 



