INTKODTU-rruN. ix 



As it turiu'd nut, liowevor, this stipulalion was not one of so iimcli practical 

 importance as had been expected, since the cost of the publication of the " Land 

 Birds of North America " was so great that the publishers of that work would 

 have been unwilling to continue it at their own risk and expense — and, in 

 fact, did decline to do so, when, after the stoppage of the California Survey, the 

 present work was offered to tliein for publication l)y joint consent of the authors 

 and the former State Geologist of California. The latter, however, ha^■ing de\-ot('d 

 himself, subsequently to the second and final stoppage of the Survey in 1874, 

 to a continuation — chiefly at his own risk and expense — of the publication 

 of the material left in a more or less fragmentary condition in his hands, finally 

 concluded to take up the unfinished volumes of Ornithology; and, with the 

 generous co-operation of the Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 

 now presents them to the public, as furming at the same time a portion of the 

 series of Memou-s of that institution, and a continuation of the Eeports of 

 the Geological Survey of California. 



As in the previously published volumes of the North American Birds, the 

 technical or descriptive portion of the present division (if tliat work has been 

 prepared by Messrs. Bau-d and Ridgway ; and the latter has had the opportunity 

 of making, during the printing, such additions and corrections as were rendered 

 necessary by the fact that several years have elapsed since the manuscript was 

 originally prepared for publication. The biogi'aphical portion of the volumes 

 devoted t(3 the Water Birds is from the pen of Dr. T. M. Brewer — who, however, 

 did not live to see the beginning of the printing of this, the final, jiortion of 

 a work on which he had bestowed so much labor. The task of revising his 

 not entirely completed manuscript has fallen upon the undersigned, who has 

 endeavored to do the best he could with it, esjiecially as regards the occasion- 

 ally somewhat uncertain orthography of the names of persons and places. In 

 this he has had the assistance of Mr. J. A. Allen, of tlie Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology. 



The illustrations of this volume were, with few and unimportant exceptions, 

 drawn upon the wo. id liy Mr. Edwin L. Sheppard, of Philadelphia, and engraved 

 by Mr. Hobart H. Nicliols, of Washington. The coloring of the heads was 

 done under the direction of ilrs. F. H. Eussell, of Brookliue, Mass., from patterns 

 prepared l)y Mr. Ridgway. 



J. D. WHITNEY. 



Cambridge, Ma.ss., Jrarcli .31, 1884. 



