VI PREFACE. 



Giiiy of Science, Salem, Mass.; by the j^ublisliers of the 

 American Naturalist, and by the Boston Society of Natural 

 History, while forty of the cuts of birds have been electro- 

 typed from the originals of Coues' Key. 



Measurements are usually given in the metric system ; in 

 such cases the approximate equivalent in inches and fractions 

 of an inch being added in parenthesis. 



Should this manual aid in the work of education, stimu- 

 late students to test the statements presented in it by person- 

 al observations, and thus elicit some degree of the inde- 

 pendence and self-reliance characteristic of the original in- 

 vestigator, and also lead them to entertain broad views in 

 biology, and to sympathize with the more advanced and 

 more natural ideas now taught by the leading biologists 

 of our time, the author will feel more than reiwid. 



BnowN Ukiveksity, 



Providence, R. I., October 25, 1879, 



