INTRODUCTION. 



The entire eight volumes (1876-1883) of the ' Bulletin ' and seven- 

 teen volumes (1884-1900) of its continuation, 'The Auk,' published 

 by the Nuttall Ornithological Club and the American Ornithologists' 

 Union respectively, are here indexed. The material was gathered 

 by a committee and elaborated by the editor, who has introduced 

 features which, it is hoped, will add to the simplicity and general 

 usefulness of an index that, in a measure, is a guide to a large part 

 of the ornithological literature of the last quarter of the nineteenth 

 century. Primarily, authors, localities, genera, synonyms and miscel- 

 laneous items are combined in a strictly alphabetical index ; secon- 

 darily, all references are discriminated, classified and arranged under 

 the primary headings and each indicated by the year and the page 

 of the volume containing it. A fuller explanation of the details of 

 arrangement is as follows : 



1. Authors. Titles of papers are in chronological order and in 

 condensed form. Reviews and notices are indicated by the abbre- 

 viation ' (rev.),' which is used alone when the author is reviewed, 

 and by the additional word ' see ' prefacing the paragraph when the 

 author is reviewer. Authors' names occurring in ' Minor Ornitho- 

 logical Publications ' are indexed only under localities. 



2. Localities. Names of authors in alphabetical order are placed 

 under each. 



3. Genera. Species in alphabetical order are indexed under their 

 respective genera, subspecies or races being, for indexing conven- 

 ience, treated like species and the middle term of the trinomial 

 dropped. Under species, the page references are arranged by states 

 and countries in alphabetical order, and, set off by a dash, at the end 

 of the localities are additional categories in which are put references 

 to matters other than distribution. In the endeavor to bring all 

 references to the same genus, species or subspecies under one name, 

 a simple system of key lettering has been devised to obviate possible 

 confusion. Each key letter corresponds to a name in parenthesis 

 after the genus or species, and this name is the one which will be 

 found on the page cited. Other names in parenthesis, without a 



