PREFACE. 



This book has been written from a desire to interest, if not 

 to instruct, young people in that most attractive branch of 

 natural history, the study of birds. If this purpose is ac- 

 complished, I trust that its deficiencies may be pardoned. In 

 my early study of ornithology, I felt great need of some simi- 

 lar book ; hence my attempt to supply it. 



The volume will fill a place hitherto vacant in ornitholo- 

 gical literature. The works of Wilson,^ Audubon,^ and Nut- 

 tall,^ are costly, and rarely offered for sale, having been in a 

 great measure superseded by modern authors. The recent 

 and most complete work on American ornithology,* that of 

 Messrs. Baird, Brewer, and Eidgway, is also costly. Mr. 

 Samuels's book on the " Birds of New England and Adjacent 

 States"^ has been thought too expensive to be within the 

 reach of all, and more or less inaccurate and incomplete. Dr. 

 Coues's admirable " Key to North American Birds," ^ which 

 is probably the best book of reference for collectors, and 

 students of inanimate birds, treats merely of structure, clas- 

 sification, and specific descriptions. The same author's 

 " Field Ornithoh)gy," "^ and Mr. Maynard's " Naturalist's 



^ American Ornithology. Wilson. 9 of New England and Adjacent States. 

 Tola. Philadelphia, 1814. Brought E. A. Samuels. 1867. 

 down by Ord to 1827. Also 4 volumes ^ Key to North American Birds, -with 

 by Bonaparte, of the birds not giyen by a list of fossil birds. Coues. Natural- 

 Wilson. Philadelphia, 1833. ists' Agency, Salem, Mass. 



^ a. Ornithological Biography. Au- ' Field Ornithology, with A Check- 



dubon. 1838. b. Enlarged to Birds List of North American Birds." Cones. 



of America in 1844. Naturalists' Agency, Salem, Mass. 



^ A Manual of the Ornithology of the " The Check-List has been published 



United States and Canada. Nuttall. separately. The older Smithsonian list 



1832, 1840. may be obtained from the Naturalists' 



* North American Birds. Baird, Agency, Salem, Mass. To the above- 

 Brewer, and Ridgway. Little, Brown, mentioned books of reference may be 

 & Co., Boston, 1874. added various local catalogues, and the 



^ Birds (or Ornithology and Oology) first volume, lately published, of Life- 



