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126 DAVENPORT ACADEMY OK SCIENCES. 



birds of Iowa as a whole are the nominal unannotated catalogues 

 of J. A. Allen (1870) and Herbert Osborn (1892), and the prelimi-' 

 nary annotated catalogue by Chas. R. Keyes and H. S. Williams 

 in 1889. 



Feeling the need for a state catalogue of Iowa birds which 

 should embody the latest results of field work and conform to the 

 present accepted code of nomenclature, the writer began to collect 

 material for the present volume in the fall of 1903, as a graduate 

 student at the State University of Iowa. The library of the 

 department of zoology and the Talbot collection of books in the 

 general library of the I'uiversity, the latter rich in books of early 

 North American travel and rare scientific volumes, were quite 

 well supplied with the necessary bibliographical material, and 

 through the courtesy of the library authorities a number of rare 

 books were obtained from the IJbrar}- of Congress in furtherance 

 of the work. 



The Museum of Natural History of the State University of Iowa 

 is particularly rich in birds, containing the collections of C. C. 

 Nutting, Frank Bond, Dr. Horr, D. H. Talbot, and others. The 

 Talbot collection, donated by Mr. D. Talbot of Sioux City, com- 

 prises several thousand specimens and many exceptionally large 

 series, chiefly from the Mississippi Valley, which are invaluable in 

 determining the status of certain disputed forms. The writer's 

 small private collection and field notes, running from the year 

 1890 to the present time, have also been freely used. 



Great indebtedness is acknowledged to Dr. Paul Bartsch of the 

 Smithsonian Institution, whose unpublished thesis on "The Lit- 

 erature of Iowa Birds," giving a quite complete Hst of the papers 

 relating to Iowa birds, published annually from 1804 to 1899, fur- 

 nished me with many bibliographical hints. All references used 

 in the present work were personally verified from the original 

 sources by the writer. 



In pursuance of the line of work adopted, about one hundred 

 check lists of North American birds wer(i sent out to persons inter- 

 ested in ornithology throughout the state, requesting them to mark 

 such species as were found in their respective localities, and fur- 

 nish notes respecting their relative abundance, migrations, nesting, 

 etc. A list of those who kindly contributed notes and other assist- 

 ance will be found elsewhere. 



