EDITOR'S PREFACE. xiii 



As to my other foot-notes, it may be well to explain that, 

 excepting in a few cases which possess unusual interest, I 

 have abstained from criticising points in regard to which 

 there are grounds for a fair difference of opinion or impres- 

 sion, and have confined myself to questioning or correcting 

 statements which are positively known or generally believed 

 to be erroneous ; and further, that I have made no attempt 

 to supplement Mr. Minot's biographies by additional matter, 

 save where this fills a conspicuous blank, — as in the case 

 of a nest and eggs which were unknown to him, — or where 

 what I have added directly qualifies or explains something 

 that he has said. 



Practically the whole of the text, — including the ingenious, 

 but intricate and perhaps useless, keys and tables in the Ap- 

 pendix, — has been reprinted in nearly its original form ; the 

 only important changes being the following : (1) Family 

 titles have been introduced as page headings. (2) The scien- 

 tific names of birds throughout the work, with very few ex- 

 ceptions,* have been made to conform with those adopted in 

 the latest editions of the " A. O. U. Check List," now almost 

 universally followed by American writers. (3) Some of the 

 English names of birds have been changed slightly in form or 

 spelling, or with respect to the use of capital letters. Ex- 

 cept in a very few cases, however, all the vernacular names 

 given by Mr. Minot have been retained and no new ones added. 

 (4) The parentheses, which in the first edition inclosed the 

 numbers and letters used to designate species and certain sec- 

 tions of the text, have been omitted. (5) The notes and 

 additions which originally appeared in the Appendix have 

 been reproduced in the form of foot-notes to the matter to 

 which they respectively relate. (6) The punctuation has 

 been to some extent emended. (7) Certain words and sen-. 



* Most of these exceptions could not be avoided without disturbing the 

 system of numbers by which Mr. Minot designated genera and species and 

 which he habitually used instead of page references in the text of his biogra- 

 phies ; e. g., the genus Syrnium with its species " (A) cinereum " and " (B) 

 nebulosum.^^ Had these species been placed respectively under the genera 

 Scotiaptex and Syrnium^ to which they are now referred, the sequence of num- 

 bers must have been either broken or changed. 



