vi PREFACE. 
one time or another the writer has visited five of Upper Peninsula counties, 
and all but seven or eight of those in the Lower Peninsula, making personal 
notes of the birds observed in the field and searching out local collections 
and local authorities, in order to get every scrap of information obtainable. 
All the public museums of the state, most of the college museums, and 
scores of private collections have been visited and critically inspected, 
and it has been possible in this way to eliminate a number of “records 
based on specimens which had been wrongly identified, and also to secure 
much additional evidence as to the distribution of rare or little known 
birds. Every possible assistance has been given by owners and custodians 
of such collections, and in some cases the records of years have been searched 
in order to furnish the information asked. 
Only the hearty cooperation of the ornithologists and bird lovers of 
the state has made it possible to collect the material for the present volume, 
and I desire to acknowledge with sincere gratitude the unselfish help thus 
received from scientists, teachers, students and citizens generally through- 
out the commonwealth. A list of contributors will be found in Appendix 
6, which probably includes most of those who have furnished lists, records, 
dates, specimens, pictures, cuts, notes, observations, addresses, etc., but 
in gathering notes through so many years it is inevitable, though most 
regrettable, that some names should be overlooked. 
While it may seem unfair to discriminate among these generous con- 
tributors, it nevertheless is simple justice to mention a few to whom special 
recognition is due. One of the foremost of these was the late Dr. Morris 
Gibbs, of Kalamazoo, a valued friend and correspondent from 1894 until 
his death in 1908. Though physically debarred from field work for the 
last twenty years of his life, he was to the end a constant student of bird- 
life, always enthusiastic in everything which stimulated popular interest 
in his favorite science. Dr. Gibbs generously placed at my disposition 
all his early field records and manuscript notes, many of them of special 
value as relating largely to collections of birds and eggs obtained from 
him by the college before my connection with the institution, and forming 
part of the Agricultural College collection. 
I am also deeply indebted to almost every former member of the Mich- 
igan Ornithological Club, among whom may be mentioned in particular 
Norman A. Wood, B. H. Swales, P. A. Taverner, L. Whitney Watkins, 
A. B. Covert, J. Claire Wood, Newell A. Eddy, E. E. Brewster, Percy 
Selous (deceased), Jerome Trombley, O. B. Warren, Dr. Robert H. Wolcott, 
Dr. W. H. Dunham, Dr. Leon J. Cole, Thomas L. Hankinson, and many 
others. To Mr. P. A. Taverner I am indebted not only for hundreds of 
field notes on Michigan birds, but for the original drawings or actual elec- 
trotypes from which thirteen of the full page plates and fifty-eight of 
the text figures have been made, the latter including almost all the detail 
drawings of heads, bills, wings, feet and tails used in the keys and else- 
where. The plates and figures of nests are mainly from the beautiful 
photographs made by Thos. L. Hankinson, while a student at the Agri- 
cultural College, years ago. My associate, Professor J. J. Myers of the 
Zoological Department, patiently photographed numberless museum 
specimens, from which nine plates and twenty-one text figures were selected, 
besides rendering efficient aid in many other ways. Other plates and 
figures were kindly furnished by the Division of Biological Survey of the 
U. §. Department of Agriculture, the National Committee of Audubon 
Societies, Bird: Lore, and the owners, authors and publishers of several 
