12 HOW TO NAME THE BIRDS 



which it is described, and not to a page, unless so 

 stated. 



The color of the bill is not diagnostic, except where 

 it is involved in the name of the bird (as black-billed 

 and yellow-billed cuckoos), or where it is very large and 

 conspicuous, as in the sea-swallow. 



The following list comprises only those that are nor- 

 mally found within the territory, as regular summer or 

 winter visitants, as migrants, or as permanent species. 

 The book would only be enlarged, and its helpfulness 

 would not be materially increased, by inserting those 

 that occur only casually and at long intervals, as strag- 

 glers from the far west or south. It is possible that a 

 very few species here given, whose exact status it is dif- 

 ficult to learn, should be regarded as casual rather than 

 normal. 



As a fact of interest to the more advanced ornithol- 

 ogist, it may be said that the various areas in which ev- 

 ery species may be looked for at different seasons of the 

 year have never before been so fully presented as in this 

 book, in the descriptive details taken in connection 

 with the several supplementary lists at the close of the 

 four great Groups. 



Acknowledgments are due, for such data as personal 

 observation could not furnish, to W. A. Stearns's '' New 

 England Bird Life" (edited by Dr. Elliott Coues), 

 Minot's *'Land and Game Birds of New England," 

 Merriam's ''Birds of the Adirondack Region" (Bull. 

 N. O. C., VI.), Gilbert's '' The Rarer Birds of Western 



