PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



' I ^HE second edition of the "Key/' which appeared in May, 1884, has al- 

 -*- ready been out of print for more than a year. Though aware of the 

 continued demand for a standard work of reference, the author has been unable 

 to meet it more promptly, having meanwhile accepted some other literary en- 

 gagements which proved imperative in their demand upon his capacity for work. 

 Slight as the requisite revision of this book has proven to be, it did not seem ex- 

 pedient to go to press again without recognizing the steps American Ornithology 

 has taken during the past three years, though these may be called many rather 

 than great ones. There is so little to change in the substance of the book that 

 it has been thought decidedly best to reprint from the same plates, and put what 

 new matter has come to hand in the form of an Appendix. However much 

 there is that might have advantageously gone into the second edition, but did 

 not, the author is satisfied with nearly everything that did go in, and quite ready 

 to submit it all to the still further test of time. The transition from what some 

 of his friends have called the " Couesian Period " may mean a change in form 

 rather than in fact. 



The naming of our birds, as an art distinguished from the science of know- 

 ing them, has lately been pitched in a key so high that the familiar notes of the 

 former " Key " might jangle out of tune, or be lost entirely, were the attempt 

 made to reset them just now. During the confusion unavoidably incident to 

 such sweeping changes in nomenclature as we have recently made, it will be a 

 decided benefit to the student, the sportsman, and the amateur, if not also to 

 every working ornithologist, to be provided with a convenient means of compar- 

 ing the older with the newer style of nomenclature we have adopted, until each 

 one shall have grown accustomed to the change of spectacles. This accommoda- 

 tion is afforded by the present edition, which leaves the names and their num- 



