VU PREFACE. 
might gather the coveted information remained unsatisfied. There was no work—and 
there is none at present—that could have given me the desired information in a 
manner adapted to my acquisitions. Audubon’s unrivaled ‘“‘Birds of America,’’ Wilson’s 
“American Ornithology,’ Nuttall’s ‘“Manual of the Ornithology of the United States 
and Canada,” and the excellent work, “North American Birds,” by Baird, Brewer, and 
-Ridgway, were too expensive for my limited means. I enjoyed nature in all her dewy 
freshness, I was thrilled with rapture when in the beautiful month of June bird life was 
at its best, but I was unable to compare my observations with those of others, the 
standard works on ornithology being out of my reach, and the popular treatises being 
inaccurate and almost worthless. Thousands of our young people, true friends of 
nature and enthusiastic lovers of our feathered woodland minstrels, are in the same 
situation in which I found myself in my. boyhood. The love for nature ought to be 
promoted and directed in the right way in our rising generation, and there should be 
ways and means to accomplish this. 
Our most excellent ornithological works are either too costly, or too technical 
for the general reader. In the present work, which is intended to fill the gap between 
the very expensive and the merely technical ornithological books, I aim to ‘combine 
accuracy and reliability of biography with a minimum of technical description,” 
have the work “illustrated in such a way that all figures are recognizable.” Although 
this work is written for all lovers of natural history, I specially endeavor, to inspire 
our young people with a tender regard for the feathered minstrels of our woodlands, 
fields and meadows, groves.and gardens. 
The title does not give the reader a full idea of the scope and the contents 
of the work. It treats of all our native birds from the Thrushes to the Parrots, 
including all our Songbirds, Flycatchers, Hummingbirds, Swifts, Goatsuckers, Wood- 
peckers, Kingfishers, Trogons, and Cuckoos, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from 
Alaska and Labrador to Florida and Mexico. In a more cursory way it also treats of 
the climate and seasons of different localities north and south, of the utility and 
aesthetical value of the birds, of the woods and prairies, the more beautiful popular 
wild flowers of our country, and the poetry of bird life. 
The life histories of many birds are chiefly based on my own observations, made 
from Wisconsin to Texas and Florida. For the purpose of studying the life of our birds 
I spent several years in Texas, five years in the Ozark region of south-western Missouri, 
and a number of years in different parts of Illinois. I also visited the southern Alle- 
ghanies and different localities in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, 
Florida, etc. Yet this work would be incomplete, should I have neglected to quote 
freely from the writings of our great American ornithologists of the present time.. Prof. 
Wm. Brewster’s charmingly and poetically written life histories of many of our birds 
and his ornithological “reconnoissances” in the beautiful mountain regions of North 
Carolina and New England, in Florida and Georgia, and the classical and unique work 
on the “Birds of the Colorado Valley,” by Dr. Elliott Coues, have always inspired me 
with enthusiasm. Prof. Robert Ridgway, Dr. J. A. Allen, and Dr. C. H. Merriam have 
written so attractively on many of our birds, that I have quoted many an interest- 
ing passage of intrinsic value from their scientific writings. Mr. Otto Widmann, of 
and to 
