THE HABITAT GROUPS OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS 



IN THE 

 AMERICAN^MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY 



By Frank M. Chapman 

 Curator of Ornithology 



THESE groups of birds are designed to illustrate not only the 

 habits but also the haunts or "habitats" of the species shown. 

 Each group usually includes the nest, eggs and young, besides 

 the adult bird or birds, with a reproduction of from 60 to 160 square 

 feet of the nest's immediate surroundings. To this accurate and realistic 

 representation of the home of the species is added a painting from nature 

 of its habitat, the real foreground being connected with the painted 

 background in such a manner that one often does not at first see where 

 the former ends and the latter begins. The whole, therefore, gives an 

 adequate conception of the nature of the country the birds inhabit and 

 the conditions under which they live. 



It should be clearly understood that these backgrounds are not more 

 or less fanciful sketches of the haunts of the birds associated with them, 

 but they are careful studies from nature of definite localities, and there- 

 fore possess a geographical as well as an ornithological value. When 

 selecting subjects for treatment, an effort was made to include the birds 

 of widely diversified types of country, in order that the series, as a whole, 

 should portray not only the habitats of certain American birds, but 

 America as well. From the Bahamas to Hudson Bay, from the Atlantic 

 to the Pacific, localities are represented which show at least the more 

 characteristic phases of our landscape, and it is hoped that a tour through 

 this hall of Habitat Groups will not only yield information in regard to 

 North American birds, but also give one some conception of the appear- 

 ance of the land in which they live. 



Some subjects were in nearljy places and were easily visited; others 

 were in remote regions and were reached with more or less difficulty.^ 

 It is estimated that about 75,000 miles have been traveled to secure the 

 material on which the groups are based. 



> The narrative of man\' of these expetUtions is contained in "Camps and Cruises of 

 an Ornithologist," by Frank M. C'hapnian. 



