lO NKW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Thus it has come to be the most important part of my field work for the 

 past lo years to make careful color notes of all these changeable parts, 

 at the first possible moment after the capture of the bird, and I have endeav- 

 ored to miss no opportunity to add to my collection. As a result I now 

 have a large series of such studies, fairly covering the field, which has been 

 freely drawn upon in this work, and without which many of the subjects 

 could not possibly have been rendered even slight justice. And it is still 

 possible that some of the species are incorrectly represented, owing to the 

 impossibility of getting fresh specimens or adequate descriptions of the 

 rarer ones. In these few cases reference has been made to such descriptions 

 as were available and to the original edition of Audubon — an expedient 

 not without jsrecedent among authors of the present day. 



Owing to the large number of species and plumages necessary to 



present, it was found impossible to devote an entire plate to each species 



as was the first hope of all connected with the work. This accounts for 



the regrettable combining of several species on a plate, at times introducing 



anomalous conditions, and bringing birds together that seldom see each 



other. We have tried hard to reduce such cases to a minimum, and it 



should be understood that where these occur there was no better solution 



apparent. Among the water birds, presented in volume i, the groups 



are for the most part not unnatural, though frequently crowded, but among 



the land birds in the second volume it was necessary to frankly face the 



situation, do the best we could, and make this explanation. 



Louis Agassiz Fuertes 

 Ithaca, N. Y. 



