In the matter herein recorded account has of course been taken of nearly 

 all thai has been done by other workers, but the literature of the birds of Wash- 

 ington is very meager, being chiefly confined to annotated lists, and the conclusions 

 reached have necessarilj- been based upon our own experience, comprising some 

 thirteen vears residence in the State in the case of Mr. Bowles, and a little more 

 in my own. Field work has been about e(|ually divided between the East-side 

 and the West-side and we have both been able to give practically all our time to 

 this cause during the nesting seasons of the past four years. Parts of several 

 seasons have been sjient in the Cascade Mountains, but there remains much to 

 learn of bird-life in the high Cascades, while the conditions existing in the Blue 

 Mountains and in the Olympics are still largely to be inferred. Two practically 

 complete surveys were made of island life along the West Coast, in the summers 

 of 1906 and 1907 ; and we feel that our nesting sea-birds at least are fairly well 

 understood. 



Altho necessarily bidky, these volumes are by no means exhaustive. No 

 attempt has been made to tell all that is known or may be known of a given 

 species. It has been our constant endeavor, however, to present something like a 

 true proportion of interest as between the birds, to exhibit a species as it appears 

 to a Washingtonian. On this account certain prosy fellows have received extended 

 treatment merely because they are ours and have to be reckoned with ; while 

 others, more interesting, perhaps, have not been considered at length simply 

 because we are not responsible for them as characteristic birds of Washington. 

 In writing, however, two classes of readers have had to be considered, — first, the 

 Washingtonian who needs to have his interest aroused in tlie birds of his home 

 State, and second, the serious ornithological student in the East. For the sake 

 of the former we have introduced some familiar matter from other sources, 

 including a previous wi^rk^ of the author's, and for this we must ask the indulgence 

 of ornithologists. For the sake of the latter we have dilated upon certain points 

 not elsewhere covered in the case of certain Western birds, — matters of abun- 

 dance, distribution, sub-specific variety, etc., of dubious interest to our local 

 patrons ; and for this we must in turn ask their indulgence. 



The order of treatment observed in the following pages is substantially the 

 reverse of that long followed by the American Ornithologists' Union, and is 

 justifiable principally on the ground that it follows a certain order of interest and 

 convenience. Beginning, as it does, with the supposedly highest forms of bird- 

 life, it brings to the fore the most familiar birds, and avoids that rude juxtaposi- 

 tion of the lowest form of one group with the highest of the one above it, which 

 has been the confessed weakness of the A. O. U. arrangement. 



The outlines of classification may be found in the Table of Contents to each 

 volume, and a brief synopsis of generic, family, and ordinal characters, in the 



a. The Birds of Ohio, by William Leon Dawson, .\. M., B. D., witli Introduction and Analytical Keys 

 by Lynds Jones, M. Sc. One and Two Volumes, pp. xlviii. + 671. Columbus, The Wheaton Publishing 

 Company, 1903. 



