482 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



ticular locality, so that it is a complete summary of our present knowl- 

 edge of the subject. There have been utilized some notes made by 

 the writer during other brief visits in 1893 (August 28-30), 1895 

 (June 17), 1899 (June 26-27), 1902 (December 9) and 1903 (Au- 

 gust 22). To Mr. Ralph B. Simpson, of Warren, Pa'., the writer is 

 under obligations for the use of the notes made upon his various visits 

 to Erie, as follows: September 5-19, 1900; April 24-27, September 

 25-27, November 17-23, 1902 ; April 13-16, November 10-14, ^9°3- 

 Mr. Archie M. Howes, of Erie, has contributed some notes on the 

 nesting of several species, and Mr. James Thompson, of the same place, 

 has courteously supplied information in regard to certain specimens in 

 his collection. The late Hon. George B. Sennett had made extensive 

 observations on the avifauna of this section, but his note-books are not 

 now to be found, and are thought to be lost. Their loss is a serious 

 matter, made up only in small part by an examination of Mr. Sennett' s 

 collection of birds and a study of the records published at second-hand 

 in Dr. B. H. Warren's "Birds of Pennsylvania." By far the most 

 important contribution, however, has been by Mr. Samuel E. Bacon, 

 of Erie, who has placed his notes on the birds of this region, covering 

 the years 1888 to 1904 inclusive, at the writer's dispo.sal. Although 

 his object was nearly always the pursuit of game birds, and the notes 

 gathered on the smaller species are necessarily of a fragmentary char- 

 acter, yet the data received from this source admirably supplement 

 those obtained by our party in 1900, and have been extensively used 

 in the preparation of the present report. Many specimens of Mr. 

 Bacon's collecting are now in the Carnegie Museum, while some are de- 

 posited in the U. S. National Museum as a part of the collection of the 

 Biological Survey. In addition to the original notes above enumerated, 

 all the known published records referring to the birds of the locality 

 under consideration have been collated, and the information contained 

 incorporated with that from the various other sources. 



Attention should be called to the fact that an intelligent understand- 

 ing of the life and distribution of birds in the region of the Great 

 Lakes will be only had when a thorough study has been made of 

 other favorable localities along their .shores. The data at present 

 available are too fragmentary, scattered, and indefinite to permit of 

 proper correlation. The few local lists that have appeared are gener- 

 ally inadequate and disappointing, and for many places of i)robable 

 interest no data are available. In the case of Lake Erie, for example. 



