ures are sufficient to ensure that the averages may be assumed to be sub- 

 stantially accurate. (Alas, ye 5-pound Mallards and Blacks!) 



The range maps show the principal winter and breeding ranges, but 

 disregard isolated breeding colonies and isolated winter records or rec- 

 ords of occasional occurrence, as without considerable explanation it 

 would not be possible to confer on such records their proper importance. 

 Again, owing to the necessarily small scale of these maps, and for the 

 sake of clarity, the ranges of certain of the birds, particularly along 

 coastal regions, have been appreciably deepened. To this extent the 

 maps are diagrammatic only, but, I believe, are not thereby seriously im- 

 paired for the purpose for which they are intended. 



The scientific names employed herein are those given in the Ameri- 

 can Ornithologists' Union Check List, 1931 Edition, and, where these 

 differ from the names adopted by Peters in his Check List of Birds of 

 the World, 1931, the nomenclature of both authorities is quoted. 



Credit is given in the "Acknowledgments" to the many who have so 

 kindly and so generously supplied me with necessary information, but 

 special tribute must be paid to Dr. Harrison F. Lewis, Chief Federal 

 Migratory Bird Officer for Ontario and Quebec; to our gifted artist, Mr. 

 T. M. Shortt, of the Royal Ontario Museum of Zoology; and to Mr. R. 

 D. Ussher, of Toronto. Without the advice, encouragement, and help of 

 these gentlemen this work would never have been accomplished. 



Of the many publications consulted and cited, the one which has 

 been of outstanding use is "Life Histories of North American Wild 

 Fowl," by Arthur Cleveland Bent. The reader will unquestionably en- 

 joy the quotations which have been made from the pen of this gifted 

 writer, and from his words sportsmen will recognize him as a master 

 craftsman. 



This book is dedicated to the Sportsmen Gunners and the Naturalists 

 of Canada and the United States. The writer hopes that it will prove 

 interesting, and if, through the increased knowledge it imparts, it assists 

 even in a small measure in the great work of conservation of our wildfowl 

 it will accomplish a useful purpose. 



F. H. KORTRIGHT, 



Toronto, Canada. 



IX 



