PREFACE. VII 
given to rest or recreation), he hopes that critics may be lenient as to 
this shortcoming of the work. 
A matter which has called forth wholly unexpected criticism is the 
necessarily irrecular manner in which brief descriptions of nests and 
eggs are interspersed through the pages of this work. That the pur- 
pose of these ‘‘vague and scattered descriptions” might be misunder- 
stood by anyone was a possibility which did not occur to the author; 
on the contrary, their intent seemed so self-evident that explanation 
was not thought of. Since, however, one writer does not ‘‘see how 
they can be of much use to the student of odlogy,” and inquires 
why, ‘‘if considered of value—were they not given uniformly through- 
out the work,” it may be stated here that these brief descriptions are 
given only (or at least mainly) in cases where some particular style 
of nest or coloration of eggs is characteristic of a group (family or 
genus), as a sort of accessory or supplemental group character,’ and 
that the numerous instances of their omission result either from the 
absence of anything specially characteristic or distinctive or else 
(as is often the case among the tropical forms) from lack of information 
on the subject. 
Placing the accent marks to names of localities in Mexico and other 
parts of Spanish America may possibly be criticized on the ground of 
inexpediency or that of irregularity in following the rules governing 
such cases; but the author has been led to do so by the apparent 
natural tendency of English-speaking people to sadly mispronounce 
such names, even when spelled precisely the same in Spanish and 
English; for example: Bogota (Bo-go-tah’), David (Dah-veed’), 
Ecuadér (Ek-wah-dir’), Salvadér (Sal-vah-dér’), General (Hen-er- 
ahl’), and Trinidad (Tre-ne-dad’), which in English (at least com- 
monly) are pronounced Bo-gé-tah, ‘Da’-vid, Ek’-wa-dor, Sal’-va-dor, 
Gén-er-al and Trin-i-dad, respectively. There are, of course, definite 
rules of accentuation in the Spanish language, but these are unknown 
to most Americans and other English-speaking people, and therefore 
the accent is frequently given where the rules do not require it. In 
a majority of cases, where the accent mark does not appear the 
accent is normal, that is, the emphasis falls on the penultimate 
syllable? Other cases where the accent is omitted are those words 
in which the Spanish accent agrees with the prevalent English one; 
as Nicaragua, Venzeuela, Yucatan, etc. In one case (that of Santa 
Fé) general usage is followed, although the accent mark is, of course, 
wholly superfluous in a word of only one syllable. 
Rosert Ripeway. 
JULY 26, 1911. 
"For example, see genera Petrochelidon, Dulus, Psaltriparus, and Regulus, and 
family Vireonide, pages 45, 126, 424, 698, and 129, in Part III. 
2 It should be remembered that each vowel represents a distinct syllable in every 
Spanish word; ‘‘pié” is not py, for instance, but pe-a/. 
