AVIFAUNA COLUMBIANA: 



BEING 



A LIST OF BIRDS ASCERTAINED TO INHABIT THE DISTRICT OF COLUM- 

 BIA, WITH THE TIMES OF ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF SUCH AS 

 ARE NON-RESIDENTS, AND BRIEF NOTICES OF HABITS, ETC. 



THE SECOND EDITION, REVISED TO DATE AND ENTIRELY REWRITTEN. 



BY 



ELLIOTT COUKS, HVE. D., I>h. D., 



Professor of Anatomy in the National Medical College, etc., 



AND 

 T>. WEBSTER PRENTISS, A. JVC., ]Yt. D. 



Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the National Medical College, etc. 



I.— LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT. 



The authors of the "Avifauna Columbiana," while classmates in college 

 at the Columbian University and still mere boys, became enthusiastic 

 on the subject of Ornithology, as boys often do. They were constantly 

 together, devoting all their spare time, which might not have been better 

 employed, to the practical study of birds in the woods and fields. Large 

 collections were made; careful and copious notes were taken of times of 

 appearance and disappearance of birds, their relative abundance, resorts, 

 food, song, nidification, and other habits. These observations became 

 in a few years of some positive value. 



This was chiefly during the years 1858-1862, both inclusive. Soon 

 after the outbreak of the War of the Kebellion, both authors, having 

 meanwhile graduated in medicine, entered the Army as medical officers. 

 One of them soon afterward settled in the practice of his profession in 

 Washington ; the other led for many years the vagabond life of an Army 

 surgeon 5 and the exigencies of their respective avocations long pre. 

 vented each from paying any further attention to the subject which had 

 brightened their college days and cemented a life-long friendship. 



Meanwhile, however, at the suggestion and through the kind atten- 

 tions of Professor Baird, their early experiences in Ornithology resulted 

 in a " List of the Birds of the District of Columbia," etc., which was 

 published in 1862 in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution 

 for 1861, pp. 399-421. After the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century 



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