6 BIRDS OF THE NEW YORK CITY REGION 



possible, it having become evident that publication by the 

 Linnsean Society would be unduly protracted, as no member 

 of the Committee was free to prosecute the work, except at 

 long and irregular intervals. It was accordingly agreed that 

 I should devote my whole time to the preparation of the 

 Handbook, that the Museum would assume the burden of 

 publication, and that the Lihnsean Society would cooperate 

 in every possible way. I accordingly became chairman of 

 the Local Avifauna Committee, of which Mr. L. N. Nichols 

 subsequently became the fourth member. 



The information on which the Handbook is based is de- 

 rived from the following sources: (a) The published records, 

 now amounting to an extensive bibliography, have not only 

 been used, but carefully checked and critically examined, 

 regardless of whether they have been summarized and in- 

 cluded in previous publications. This literature is widely 

 scattered, some of it in obscure and little known periodicals. 

 In an effort to make the search as complete as possible, the 

 entire bibliography has been gone over four times in the last 

 eight years, the writer acting each time as if he had never 

 done it before. In this way it is hoped that very few if any 

 records have escaped notice, (b) The great majority of the 

 collections made locally are now in this Museum. They have 

 all been examined, regardless of whether they have been the 

 bases of earlier reports or not. The labor involved has been 

 amply rewarded by the discovery of errors of identification 

 and numerous records of local interest as yet unpublished. 

 (c) It is not too much to say that the sight records of the past 

 twenty years constitute fifty percent of the available data for 

 this region in historical times. Over one hundred people 

 have contributed to a greater or less extent the information 

 on which the status, the relative abundance and the migra- 

 tions of the birds of the area are based. If the list of birds 

 seen on a day afield by one observer is regarded as the unit, 

 the grand total easily passes the enormous sum of one hundred 



