HANDBOOK OF BIRDS 



OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 



WITH INTKODUOTORY CHAPTERS ON TUB STUUY OF ORNITHOLOGY, UOW 



TO IDENTIFY BIRDS, AND HOW TO COLLECT AND PRESERVE 



BIRDS, THEIR NESTS, AND EGGS. 



By FRANK M. CHAPMAN. 



With Twenty full-page Plates and One Hundred and Fifty Cuts in the Text. 



ISmo. Library Edition, cloth, $3.00; Pocket Edition, in flexible 

 covers, $3.50. 



PLAN OF THE WORK. 



The author's position has not only given him exceptional oppor- 

 tunities for the preparation of a work which may be considered as 

 authoritative, but has brought him in direct contact with beginners in 

 the study of birds, whose wants he thus thoroughly understands. The 

 technicalities so confusing to the amateur are avoided, and the prob- 

 lem of identification, either in the field or study, is reduced to its 

 simplest terms. The book treats of all the birds, some five hundred 

 and forty in number, which have been found east of the Mississippi 

 River, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, and is thus 

 .of use in any part of this region. Its special features are : (1) Chrono- 

 logical tables of migration and nesting, or ornithological calendars, 

 which tell us what events are occurring in the bird world at a given 

 time. (3) A chart of the principal colors used in describing the birds 

 and their eggs, which fixes with comparative exactness the meaning of 

 the terms employed. (3) An illustrated key to families, which, with 

 its accompanying explanatory text, so graphically represents the char- 

 acters upon which families are based that a bird may at once be placed 

 in its proper group. (4) Analytical keys to the species in all (except 

 nestling) plumages. (5) Field keys to the Sparrows and Warblers. 

 (6) A concise statement of a bird's comparative numbers and season 

 when present, with the dates of arrival and departure of the migra- 

 tory species at Washington, D. C, Long Island (water-birds), Sing 

 Sing. N. Y., and Cambridge, Mass. (7) Biographical sketches, many 

 of which were contributed by the leading writers on the habits of our 

 birds. The subjects of distribution, migration, comparative numbers, 

 nests and eggs, having been formally treated in paragraphs, these 

 sketches are devoted to a brief account of a bird's haunts, notes, and 

 characteristic habits, with the especial object of aiding in its identifi- 

 cation in the field. 



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