PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION 



This Manual was written to furnish students of Zoology, students 

 of the Geographical Distribution of animals, and Nature students, 

 with diagnostic descriptions of the land and fresh water vertebrate 

 animals of the United States, together with analytical keys by means 

 of which they can be readily identified and their affinities determined. 

 Many excellent hand-books for the identification of birds already 

 exist, and their number is constantly being added to, and it is -for 

 this reason that this large Class has not been included in the present 

 book. There is, however, a very real need of a general modern manual 

 of the fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals of the country which 

 shall give the accepted scientific names of species, as well as of the 

 larger groups to which they belong, and also reflect the recent advances 

 in our knowledge of their systematic and structural relationships, 

 their manner of life and their geographical distribution. 



The region covered by this work is the whole of the United States 

 between the Canadian and Mexican borders, neither Alaska nor the 

 West Indian or Hawaiian Islands being included; the southern portion 

 of Canada, however, is included, as it belongs to the same geographical 

 region as the northern portion of the United States. With certain 

 exceptions, all the species, as well as the geographic subspecies, of the 

 four Classes of vertebrates above mentioned which are found in this 

 large region, are described, the exceptions being those species which are 

 of doubtful validity, those which are very rare, and certain Mexican 

 species, chiefly of reptiles, which have been observed but a few times 

 north of the boundary. Great care has been taken to state precisely 

 the geographic limits, so far as known, of these species and subspecies. 



In compiling this work the author has utilized every source of infor- 

 mation at his command, and is consequently under obligations to very 

 many persons; to all of these he extends his heartiest thanks. The 

 section on Fishes is based upon Jordan and Evermann's "Fishes of 

 North and Middle America," and one of the authors of this funda- 

 mental work. Dr. Barton Warren Evermann, Director of the Museum 

 of the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco, has read this 

 portion of the manuscript critically. Large use has also been made of 

 ''American Food and Game Fishes'' by the same authors, and of Jor- 



