PREFACE. 



In compiling this catalogue of the birds of Canada, the author 

 has endeavoured to bring together facts on the range and nesting 

 habits of all birds known to reside in, migrate to or visit, the north- 

 ern part of the continent. In addition to the Dominion of Canada 

 he has therefore included Newfoundland, Greenland and Alaska. 



The nomenclature and the numbers given in the latest edition 

 and supplements of the Check-list published by the American 

 Ornithologists' Union have been made the basis of arrangement 

 - of the catalogue. The order followed in the notes on each bird 

 is from east to west. Greenland is generally cited first and British 

 Columbia and Alaska last. 



As the catalogue is intended to be a popular and practical one, 

 the English names of the birds are placed f st, but the species are 

 arranged in their scientific order and in ace rdance with the latest 

 nomenclature. While recognizing the differences upon which 

 many of the technical names have been based, the writer holds 

 that some of them, depending as they do upon local and almost 

 upon individual variations from a common type, possess from any 

 practical or educational standpoint but a minor value. To an 

 investigator of changes resulting from environment such differ- 

 ences are of great interest, but to any one anxious only to obtain 

 the facts in regard to the distribution of our birds as readily 

 determinable, they are unimportant. 



Since the publication of the Fauna Boreali Americana by Swain- 

 son and Richardson, in 1831, no attempt has been made to produce 

 a work dealing with the ornithology of the region now embraced 

 in the Dominion of Canada. In the work referred to, the authors 

 include separate notices of all birds that had been recorded north 

 of Lat. 48°. Two hundred and forty species are described and 

 twenty-seven additional West Coast species are added, making a 

 total of two hundred and sixty-seven species known at that date. 



No attempt was subsequently made to catalogue the birds of 

 Canada as a whole until 1887, when Mr. Montague Chamberlain, 

 of St. John, New Brunswick, published A Catalogue of Canadian 

 Birds with Notes on th? distribution ot the Spedes.. Previous to this 



