yj PREFACE. 



across to the Pacific Coast, and that of John K. Towusend and Mr. Nuttall, 

 both of whom made some collections and brought back notices of the coun- 

 try, which, however, they were unable to explore to any great extent. The 

 entire region of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, and Cali- 

 fornia was unvisited, as also a great portion of territory north of the United 

 States boundary, including British Columbia a;nd Alaska. 



A work by Sir Jolm Eichardson, forming a volume in his series of " Fauna 

 Boreali- Americana," in reference to the ornithology of the region covered by 

 the Hudson Bay Company's operations, was published in 1831, and has 

 been much used by Mr. Audubon, but embraces little or nothing of the great 

 breeding-grounds of the water birds in the neighborhood of the Great Slave 

 and Bear Lakes, the Upper Yukon, and the shores of the Arctic coast. 



It will thus be seen that a third of a century has elapsed since any at- 

 tempt has been made to present a systematic history of the birds of North 

 America. 



The object of the present work is to give, in as concise a form as possible, 

 an account of what is known of the birds, not only of the United States, but 

 of the whole region of North America north of the boundary-line of Mexico, 

 including Greenland, on the one side, and Alaska with its islands on the 

 other. The published materials for such a history are so copious that it is a 

 matter of surprise that they have not been sooner utilized, consisting, as they 

 do, of numerous scattered biographies and reports of many government expe- 

 ditions and private explorations. But the most productive source has been 

 the great amount of manuscript contained in the archives of the Smithsonian 

 Institution in the form of correspondence, elaborate reports, and the field- 

 notes of collectors and travellers, the use of which, for the present M'ork, has 

 been liberally allowed by Prol'essor Henry. By far the most important of 

 these consist of notes made by the late Eobert Kennicott in Britisli America, 

 and received from him and other gentlemen in the Hudson Bay Territory, 

 who were brought into intimate relationship with the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion through Mr. Kennicott's efforts. Among them may be mentioned more 

 especially Mr. E. MacFarlane, Mr. B. E. Eoss, Mr. James Lockhart, Mr. 

 Lawrence Clark, Mr. Strachan Jones, and others, whose names will appear 

 in the course of the work. The especial value of tlie communications re- 

 ceived from these gentlemen lies in the fact that they resided for a long 

 time in a region to which a large proportion of the rapacious and water birds 

 of North America resort during the summer for incubation, and which until 

 recently has been sealed to explorers. 



Equally servicealile has been the information received from the region of 

 the Yukon Eiver and Alaska generally, including the Aleutian Islands, as 

 supplied by Messrs. Eobert Kennicott, William H. Dall, Henry M. Bannister, 

 Henry "W. Elliott, and others. 



It should be understood that the remarks as to the absence of general works 

 on American Ornithology, since the time of Audubon, apply only to the life 



