PREFACE. 



It is to be regretted that the want of leisure Barton speaks of in the coueluding page ol' this 

 ' Fragment' prevented him from publishing at greater length on the Natural History of his native 

 country ; for the present work shows that its author was a man of no ordinary observation and 

 intelligence. He wrote at a time when our knowledge of the ornithology of North America was 

 quite in its infancy, and some years before Alexander Wilson published his ever-famous work, 

 which gave the impetus to the study, which has gone on increasing to the present time. 



Barton in the present work introduced several new names for the birds upon which he 

 wrote, but he seems never to have appreciated the importance of adding to these names definite 

 descriptions. His titles therefore, like those of his friend and predecessor William Bartram, lack 

 precision, rendering their meaning in some cases doubtful, and in others unintelligible. Dr. Coues, 

 in the Bibliographical Appendix to ' The Birds of the Colorado Valley,' wherein he treats of 

 faunal publications relating to North-American Ornithology, gives a full aljstract of this work of 

 Barton's (p. 592), and collating his names with those of Bartram, gives their modern significance 

 so far as he can make them out. 



'The Fragments' appears to be a very scarce book. Dr. Coues, when compiling his account of 

 it, referred to a copy in the Congressional Library at Washington, which had formerly been in the 

 possession of Barton's sou, Thomas Pennant Barton. That from which this reprint has been made 

 is in Mr. Godman's and my own library, and was formerly in that of the late Vicomte Du Bus. 

 Another copy is in the Banksian Library in the British Museum. 



The work is dedicated to the " Linn;ean Society," of which Barton was a Foi'cign Member, 

 having been elected on 17th January, 1797. 



OSBERT SALVIN. 



Cambridge, January 1883. 



