vill ADVERTISEMENT. 
account of their specific distinctions and characteristics 
in a zoological point of view; of their habits, haunts, 
and migrations; and of their season in different parts 
of the vast demesnes owned by the American people ; 
not what is esteemed the most sportsmanlike and scien- 
tific mode of pursuing, killing, and when killed, cooking: 
them for the table. 
The leading idea of the plan was to adopt for each 
month in the year the finest, and most generally, favor- 
ite species of game, with reference principally, as regards 
season, to the Northern, Midland, and Northwestern 
portions of the United States and Canada, though the 
animals described are common more or less to all sections 
of the country. 
The somewhat rambling and irregular plan of the 
series renders any apology for this or that species of 
game wholly unnecessary, since, in the first place, it 
never was intended to constitute a perfect natural history 
of all the game, birds, beasts, and fishes of America, 
but merely a series of sketchy papers; and in the 
second, because the series is yet in progress, and when- 
ever it may appear desirable, or be called for by public 
favor, another volume or volumes may be from time to 
time presented. 
