i 
myself and the junior author, Mr. J. H. Bowles. Each of us had long had in 
anind the thought of preparing a work upon the birds of Washington; but Mr. 
Bowles, during my residence in Ohio, was the first to undertake the task, and 
had a book actually half written when I returned to the scene with friendly 
overtures. Since my plans were rather more extended than his, and since it was 
necessary that one of us should devote his entire time to the work, Mr. Bowles, 
with unbounded generosity, placed the result of his labors at my disposal and 
declared his willingness to further the enterprise under my leadership in every 
possible way. Except, therefore, in the case of signed articles from his pen, and 
in most of the unsigned articles on Grouse and Ducks, where our work has been 
a strict collaboration, the actual writing of the book has fallen to my lot. In 
practice, therefore, | have found myself under every degree of indebtedness to 
Mr. Bowles, according as my own materials were abundant or meager, or as his 
information or mine was more pertinent in a given case. 
Mr. Bowles has been as good as his word in the matter of co6peration, and 
has lavished his time in the quest of new species, or in the discovery of new nests, 
or in the location of choice subjects for the camera, solely that the book might 
profit thereby. In several expeditions he has accompanied me. On this account, 
therefore, the text in its pronouns, “I,” “we,” or ‘he,’ bears witness to a sort 
of sliding scale of intimacy, which, unless explained, might be puzzling to the 
casual reader. I am especially indebted to Mr. Bowles for extended material upon 
the nesting of the birds; and my only regret is that the varying requirements of 
the task so often compelled me to condense his excellent sketches into the meager 
sentences which appear under the head “Nesting.” Not infrequently, however, I 
have thrown a few adjectives into Mr. Bowles’s paragraphs and incorporated 
them without distinguishing comment, in expectation that our joint indebtedness 
will hardly excite the curiosity of any disengaged “higher critic” of ornithology. 
Let me, then, express my very deep gratitude to Mr. Bowles for his generosity 
and my sincere appreciation of his abilities so imperfectly exhibited, I fear, in 
the following pages, where I have necessarily usurped the opportunity. 
It is matter of regret to the author that the size of these volumes, now 
considerably in excess of that originally contemplated, has precluded the possi- 
bility of an extended physical and climatic survey of Washington. ‘The striking 
dissimilarity of conditions which obtain as between the eastern side of the State 
and the western are familiar to its citizens and may be easily inferred by others 
from a perusal of the following pages. Our State is excelled by none in its 
diversity of climatic and physiographic features. ‘The ornithologist, therefore, 
may indulge his proclivities in half a dozen different bird-worlds without once 
leaving our borders. Especially might the taxonomist, the subspecies-hunter, revel 
in the minute shades of difference in plumage which characterize the representa- 
tives of the same species as they appear in different sections of our State. We 
have not gone into these matters very carefully, because our interests are rather 
