Rk BE ACU... 
In compiling this catalogue the authors have endeavoured to 
bring together facts on the range and nesting habits of all birds 
known to reside in, migrate to or visit, the northern part of the 
continent. In addition to the Dominion of Canada they have 
therefore included Newfoundland, Greenland and Alaska. The 
nomenclature and the numbers given in the latest edition and supple- 
ments 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, as a general rule, 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 differences 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 unimpor- 
tant. Until the publication of the first edition of this Catalogue, no 
attempt had been made to produce a work dealing with the ornith- 
ology of the region now embraced in the Dominion of Canada since 
the publication of the Fauna Borealt Americana by Swainson and 
Richardson, in 1831. 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. 
The first attempt to catalogue the birds of Canada as a whole 
was made in 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, 
Mr. Thomas MclIlwraith, of Hamilton, Ontario, published his Birds 
of Ontario, which included the birds known to occur in that province 
