INTRODUCTION. 



[THE ORIGINAL PREFACE.] 



' IN a book, sketch, or series of sketches, one of the last things to be written 

 and often one of the last to be printed is the introduction; Why, then, 

 it should be so invariably placed first is a question for the causalist. I shall 

 vary the usual proceedings in such cases, and, writing my introduction last, 

 shall both print and place it last. 



The subject of the present and last number of BIRD LIFE IN LABRADOR 

 is very briefly stated. 



In 1875, the writer made a Summer excursion to Labrador, remaining 

 there two months, traveling chiefly within a radius of sixty miles southwest 

 and ten miles northeast of Bonne Esperance. In 1880, he visited the coast 

 in September and remained until the following September, calling at nearly 

 every harbor of importance from Mingan to Red Bay. In 1882, a third ex- 

 ploring party continued the work of the two previous trips, as far as Fox 

 Harbor, St. Lewis Sound. Other trips to portions of these same grounds 

 have been made, and much new material gained, but not beyond St. Lewis 

 Sound, as above mentioned. 



When the sketches that have just appeared in the AMERICAN FIELD were 

 written, after returning from the trip in 1882, I had never seen any account 

 whatever of the birds of this region, saving from occasional glimpses in odd 

 volumes of the works of Audubon, and not all of these. I cannot, therefore, 

 be charged with literary piracy, so often urged upon writers of any particular 

 subject or region. To prove the above fact, I am prepared to take upon me 

 the most solemn obligation that can be required of any author. I make this 

 statement simply as a precautionary measure of self-protection. Some 

 years after the sheets were wrttten, I added several species to my list upon 

 other authority than my own, in order to embrace all the then known birds 



