iv 
Mr. Thomas Mcllwraith, of Hamilton, Ontario, published his 
Birds of Ontario, which included the birds known to occur in that 
province only. The second edition of this work was published in 
1894 and included 317 species. The bzrds of Manitoba, by Mr- 
Ernest Seton-Thompson, of Toronto, was published by the 
Smithsonian Institution in 1891, and, as its name implies, covered 
little more than that province. Mr. C. E. Dionne, of Quebec, pub- 
lished a catalogue of the birds of that province, with notes on their 
geographical distribution, in 1880, and lately (in 1896) Mr. Ernest 
D. Wintle has published in Montreal a valuable little work 
entitled Birds of Montreal. Mr. John Fannin, the curator of the 
Provincial Museum in Victoria, British Columbia, has published 
a Catalogue of the Birds of British Columbia, the second edition of 
which was issued in 1898. in this catalogue he includes his own 
extensive knowledge and that of all other observers in the pro- 
vince. 
While others were engaged in gathering and publishing the 
valuable information contained in the above-mentioned works, 
the writer, although attending to other subjects which claimed 
most of his time, had constantly before him the necessity 
of the present work, and has been collecting notes and observa- 
tions for it during all his journeys since 1879. The summers of 1879 
and 1880 were spent on the prairie west of Manitoba, the season 
of 1881 in northern Manitoba, the summers of 1882 and 1883 along 
the lower St. Lawrence, that of 1884 around Lake Nepigon; that 
of 1885 in the Rocky and Selkirk mountains on the line of the 
Canadian Pacific Railway. The summer of 1887 was spent on 
Vancouver Island, and that of 1888 on Prince Edward Island. 
In 1889 Mr. W. Spreadborough was engaged, under the super- 
vision of the writer, and stationed for two months at Hastings and 
Agassiz on the Lower Fraser, British Columbia. The remainder 
of that season was spent between Spence’s Bridge and the Colum- 
bia River. The next season Mr. Spreadborough began work in 
March at Revelstoke, on the Columbia, and spent the summer in 
the mountains to the south and east. The spring of 1891 found 
him at Banff in the Rocky Mountains before the birds began to 
move, and there he remained all summer. As Mr. Seton-Thomp- 
son had already covered Manitoba with his excellent work, it was 
considered best for Mr. Spreadborough in the following year to 
visit Indian Head, in the prairie country to the west of that 
