INTRODUCTORY xi 
Of the birds occurring in the State and not men- 
tioned in this volume forty are ducks and geese, the 
rest being either rare migrants or subspecies, confus- 
ing to the observer and usually impossible to differ- 
entiate without a gun. The seabirds, usually omitted 
from non-technical bird books in the East, are so 
conspicuous a part of California Avifauna that 
no work on the subject would be complete without 
them. 
Field notes begun in 1894, and made with the aid 
of powerful binoculars, form the basis of the follow- 
ing pages. The books used for reference, wherever the 
author’s personal observations were unsatisfactory, 
are “ Ridgway’s Manual of North American Birds, ” 
Bendire’s *“ Life Histories,’’ Loomis’s ‘‘ Water Birds 
of California,” Mrs. Bailey’s ‘Manual of Birds of 
the Western United States,’ Davie’s ‘ Nests and 
Eggs of North American Birds,” “ The Condor, ”’ 
“The Auk,” ‘The Nidologist,’ Nelson’s ‘“ Report 
of Birds of Alaska,” and Mr. Grinnell’s “ Check-list 
of California Birds.” The check-list numbers and 
nomenclature of the American Ornithologist Union 
have been strictly adhered to. 
No originality is claimed for the technical descrip- 
tions of the birds, as on this point the author has 
drawn freely from standard authorities, oftentimes 
verbatim, when a personal examination of specimens 
was impossible. 
