Mb bPACE, 
In compiling this catalogue of the birds of Canada, the author 
has endeavoured to bring together facts on the range and nesting 
habits of all birds known to reside in, migrate to or visit, the north- 
ern part of the continent. In addition to the Dominion of Canada 
he has therefore included Newfoundland, Greenland and Alaska. 
The nomenclature and the numbers given in the latest edition 
and supplements of the Check-list published by the American 
Ornithologists’ Union have been made the basis of arrangement 
of the catalogue. The order followed in the notes on each bird 
is from east to west. Greenland is generally cited first and British 
Columbia and Alaska last. 
As the catalogue is intended to be a popular and practical one, 
the English names of the birds are placed first, but the species are 
arranged in their scientific order and in accordance with the latest 
nomenclature. While recognizing the differences upon which 
many of the technical names have been based, the writer holds 
that some of them, depending as they do upon local and almost 
upon individual variations from a common type, possess from any 
practical or educational standpoint but a minor value. To an 
investigator of changes resulting from environment such differ- 
ences are of great interest, but to any one anxious only to obtain 
the facts in regard to the distribution of our birds as readily 
determinable, they are unimportant. 
Since the publication of the Fauna Boreal Americana by Swain- 
son and Richardson, in 1831,no attempt has been made to produce 
a work dealing with the ornithology of the region now embraced 
in the Dominion of Canada. In the work referred to, the authors 
include separate notices of all birds that had been recorded north 
of Lat. 48°. Two hundred and forty species are described and 
twenty-seven additional West Coast species are added, making a 
total of two hundred and sixty-seven species known at that date. 
No attempt was subsequently made to catalogue the birds of 
Canada as a whole until 1887, when Mr. Montague Chamberlain, 
of St. John, New Brunswick, published A Catalogue of Canadian 
Birds with Notes on the distribution of the Species. Previous to this 
