Vili PREFACE. 
or open prairie, and that the student, desirous of learning 
the ways of life and variations in dress of one of the most 
gallant and attractive groups of birds living to-day, may, 
find some profit and instruction in a perusal of its pages. 
My thanks are due to my friends Professor Allen and 
Mr. Chapman of the New York Museum of Natural 
History, to Mr. R. Ridgway of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, and to Mr. Whitmer Stone of the Academy of 
Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, for the loan of speci- 
mens of the various species from which the illustrations 
in this volume have been made. 
