vi PREFACE. 



one time or another the writer has visited five of Upper Peninsula counties, 

 and all but seven or eight of those in the Lower Peninsula, making personal 

 notes of the birds observed in the field and searching out local collections 

 and local authorities, in order to get every scrap of information obtainable. 

 All the public museums of the state, most of the college museums, and 

 scores of private collections have been visited and critically inspected, 

 and it has been possible in this way to eliminate a number of "records" 

 based on specimens which had been wrongly identified, and also to secure 

 much additional evidence as to the distribution of rare or little known 

 birds. Every possible assistance has been given by owners and custodians 

 of such collections, and in some cases the records of years have been searched 

 in order to furnish the information asked. 



Only the hearty cooperation of the ornithologists and bird lovers of 

 the state has made it possible to collect the material for the present volume, 

 and I desire to acknowledge with sincere gratitude the unselfish help thus 

 received from scientists, teachers, students and citizens generally through- 

 out the commonwealth. A list of contributors will be found in Appendix 

 6, which probably includes most of those who have furnished lists, records, 

 •dates, specimens, pictures, cuts, notes, observations, addres.ses, etc., but 

 in gathering notes through so many years it is inevitable, though most 

 regrettable, that some names should be overlooked. 



While it may seem unfair to discriminate among these generous con- 

 tributors, it nevertheless is simple justice to mention a few to whom special 

 recognition is due. One of the foremost of these was the late Dr. Morris 

 Gibbs, of Kalamazoo, a valued friend and correspondent from 1894 until 

 his death in 1908. Though physically debarred from field work for the 

 last twenty years of his life, he was to the end a constant student of bird- 

 life, always enthusiastic in everything which stimulated popular interest 

 in his favorite science. Dr. Gibbs generously placed at my disposition 

 all his early field records and manuscript notes, many of them of special 

 value as relating largely to collections of birds and eggs obtained from 

 him by the college before my connection with the institution, and forming 

 part of the Agricultural College collection. 



I am also deeply indebted to almost every former member of the Mich- 

 igan Ornithological Club, among whom may be mentioned in particular 

 Norman A. Wood, B. H. Swales, P. A. Taverner, L. Whitnev Watkins, 

 A. B. Covert, J. Claire Wood, Newell A. Eddy. E. E. Brewster,^ Percy 

 Selous (deceased), Jerome Trombley, O. B. Warren, Dr. Robert H. Wolcott, 

 Dr. W. H. Dunham, Dr. Leon J. Cole. Thomas L. Hankinson, and many 

 others. To Mr. P. A. Taverner I am indebted not only for hundreds of 

 field notes on Michigan birds, but for the original drawings or actual elec- 

 trotypes from which thirteen of the full page plates and fifty-eight of 

 the text figures have been made, the latter including almost all the detail 

 drawings of heads, bills, wings, feet and tails used in the keys and else- 

 where. The plates and figures of nests are mainly from the beautiful 

 photographs made b}- Thos. L. Hankinson, while a student at the Agri- 

 cultural College, years ago. ^ly associate. Professor J. J. Mj'ers of the 

 Zoological Department, patiently photographed numberless museum 

 specimens, from which nine plates and twenty-one text figures were selected, 

 besides rendering efficient aid in many other ways. Other plates and 

 figures were kindly furnished by the Division of Biological Survey of the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture, the National Committee of Audubon 

 Societies, Bird_Lorc, and the owners, authors and pulilishers of several 



