THE ORNITHOLOGY OF THE GAME BIRDS 



OF ONTARIO. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following sketch of the Ornithology of the game and other birds of 

 Ontario interesting to sportsmen and others who take an interest in that line of 

 -study, has been written with the object of suiting all classes of readers and on 

 that account as many technical terms as possible have been omitted. In order, 

 however, to describe the birds properly, a certain number of these terms had to 

 be used, so that in order to make the matter intelligible to the ordinary reader, 

 .-a glossary of technical terms has been added at the end of the report to prevent 

 the necessity of a reference to works on ornithology. An effort has been made 

 io give as nearly as is known exactly what birds of this class are residents of or 

 -visitors to the Province of Ontario, and in a concise way in the accompanying 

 table a list of what birds the writer proposes to notice is given, together with, as 

 near as may be, the time of arrival of the migratory birds in the spring and their 

 departure in the autumn, the nesting and laying time, number of eggs, etc., when 

 the young are strong on wing, or fit to shoot, etc. 



All of these statements are given as the result of the close observation for a 

 number of years of one who has given a good deal of his time to the study of 

 bird life in Ontario, and where his own observation has been felt to be insufficient 

 for the expression of a decided opinion, the best authorities on the subject have 

 been consulted. So we claim that, though each bird has received but a short 

 notice necessarily, an endeavour has been made to have what is written as reliable 

 as possible. 



A notice of the birds destructive to game birds would have been in keeping 

 with the object of this report ; but owing to a desire to keep it from being too 

 voluminous, their consideration has been held over to possibly some future report. 



