Todd : Birds oe Erie and Presque Isle. 483 



a study of the birds of Long Point, on the Canadian shore opposite 

 Presque Isle, would be a most welcome contribution to the general 

 subject, and would afford a basis for a comparison that could not be 

 otherwise than interesting and instructive. 



In the present list, for the sake of uniformity, the nomenclature and 

 sequence of species given in the " Check-List of North American 

 Birds," published by the American Ornithologists' Union, have been 

 followed, with, however, a few lately published changes which have been 

 proposed, but not yet formally accepted. Species whose occurrence is 

 to be expected, but which have not been actually recorded, are included 

 in their proper places, enclosed in brackets, usually with a brief state- 

 ment of their extralimital records and with the proper references. 



Acknowledgments are due to all the parties above named as having 

 contributed notes for use in the present connection, and also to Mrs. 

 George B. Sennett, for permission to consult the collection of her late 

 husband ; ' to Dr. J. A. Allen, for his courtesy in affording the neces- 

 sary facilities for examining the same, and to Dr. A. K. Fisher and 

 Mr. Harry C. Oberholser for assistance in preparing the bibliograph- 

 ical list and in identifying certain species. 



General Introduction. 



Erie County occupies the extreme northwestern corner of Pennsyl- 

 vania, giving the State a northern frontage on Lake Erie of more than 

 forty miles, beginning at the Ohio line near its intersection with the 

 parallel of forty-two degrees north latitude, and extending in an 

 approximately east-northeastern direction to the New York boundary. 

 Its area is about seven hundred and seventy square miles, mainly de- 

 devoted to agricultural pursuits, comprising as it does some of the best 

 farming country in the western part of the State. Erie is the county 

 seat and chief city, with a population (in 1900) of almost fifty-three 

 thousand inhabitants. Manufactures of various kinds constitute the 

 principal industries of the city, although there is also carried on a 

 considerable commerce in lumber, grain, coal, and ore, chiefly with 

 other cities on the Great Lakes. A capacious but shallow harbor is 

 created by a strip of low-lying land forming the arc of a circle, and 

 joined to the mainland at its western extremity, leaving an entrance on 

 the east, now partially closed by an artificial breakwater. This strip of 



1 The bulk of this collection is deposited in the American Museum of Natural 

 History at New York, but nearly all the mounted specimens were presented to the 

 Carnegie Museum by Mr. Sennett a few years before his death. 



