HISTORICAL PREFACE. xxiii 
insensibly established, may be considered to have closed the Andubonian epoch, — the 
Audubonian period thus extending through the nine years after 1844. 
While Audubon was finishing, several mentionable events occurred. I have already 
spoken of Bonaparte’s “ List” of 1838, and of the 1840 edition of Nuttall’s “Manual.” 
Richardson in 1837 contributed to the Report of the Sixth Meeting of the British Asso- 
ciation for the Advancement of Science an elaborate and important “Report on North 
American Zodlogy,” relating in due part to birds. The distinguished Danish naturalist, 
Reinhardt, wrote a special treatise on Greenland Birds, 1838; W. B. O. Peabody one 
upon the birds of Massachusetts, 1839. The important Zodlogy of Captain Beechey’s 
Voyage appeared in 1839, with the birds done by N. A. Vigors. Maximilian, Prince 
of Wied, published his “ Reise in das Innere Nord-America” in 1839-41. Sixteen new 
species of birds from Texas were described and figured by J. P. Giraud in 1841, and 
the same author's useful “Birds of Long Island” was published in 1844. This year 
saw also the bird-volume of De Kay’s “ Zodlogy of New York.” The Rev. J. H. Linsley 
furnished a notable catalogue of the birds of Connecticut in 1843. A name intimately 
associated with Audubon’s is that of J. K. Townsend, whose fruitful travels in the 
West in company with Nuttall in 1834 resulted in adding to our list the many new 
species which were published by Townsend himself in 1837, and also utilized by 
Audubon. Townsend’s “Narrative” of his journey appeared in 1839; and the same 
year saw the beginning of a large work which Townsend projected, an “ Ornithology 
of the United States,” which, however, progressed no further than one part or number, 
being killed by the octavo edition of Audubon. In 1837 I first find the name of a 
friend of Audubon which often appears in his work — that of Dr. Thomas Mayo Brewer, 
who wrote on the birds of Massachusetts in this year, and in 1840 brought out his use- 
ful and convenient duodecimo edition of ‘“‘ Wilson,” in one volume. In 1844, Audubon’s 
last effectual year, the brothers Win. M. and S. F. Baird appear, with a list of the birds 
of Carlisle, Pennsylvania, having the year previously, in July, 1843, described two new 
species of flycatchers, in the first paper ever written by the one who was to make the 
succeeding epoch; and it is significant that the last bird in Audubon’s work was named 
“Emberiza bairdi.” 
Such were the aspects of the ornithological sky as the glorious Audubonian sun 
approached and passed the zenith ; still more significant were the signs of the times as 
that orb neared its golden western horizon. In the interval between 1844 and 1853, 
Baird and Brewer continued ; Cassin and Lawrence appeared in various papers; and 
round these names are grouped those of William Gambel, with new and interesting ob- 
servations in the Southwest; of George A. McCall and S. W. Woodhouse, in the same 
connection; and of Holbéll in respect of Greenland birds. The most important con- 
tributions were the several papers published by Gambel, in 1845 and subsequently, and 
Baird’s Zodlogy of Stansbury’s Expedition, 1852. But no period-marking, still less epoch- 
making, work accelerated the setting of the sun of Audubon. 
Tue Barrpran Epocu: 1853-18 —. 
(1853-1858.) 
The Cassinian Period. — While much material was accumulating from the explora- 
tion of the great West, and the Bairdian period was rapidly nearing ; while Brewer and 
