still uncharted depths and unsealed heights in California, and a wilderness so wide- 

 spread and so near at hand that one might deliberately lose himself in its mazes within 

 two hours of almost any given point. Field work has been conducted chiefly in the 

 breeding season, say April to July, and one season was spent in Arizona with a view to 

 getting a quicker, surer knowledge of the desert species which invade our own borders. 

 If a disproportionate interest seems to attach to the treatments of the mountain- 

 dwelling species, it is with deliberate intention to promote a quicker enthusiasm for 

 these unfrequented fastnesses. 



The author is also under deep obligation to many years of bird questing spent in 

 the State of Washington. The result of these experiences was embodied in a two- 

 volume work, "The Birds of Washington," published in 1909; and in the preparation 

 of this work the author enjoyed the cooperation of Mr. John Hooper Bowles, of Tacoma. 

 "The Birds of Washington" was obscurely published and of necessarily limited circu- 

 lation; and inasmuch as a good deal of its matter was exactly descriptive of conditions 

 obtaining in California, or at least concerned species found in California, it has been 

 unhesitatingly used as a supplementary source-book for "The Birds of California." 

 The adaptation of passages has been most conscientiously done (I have a horror of 

 stale stuff), so that the northern flavor thus imparted to "The Birds of California" may 

 be deemed to offset in a measure the stigma of residence south of the Tehachipe. 



The plumage descriptions appearing in this work are based chiefly upon original 

 studies of material in the very adequate collections of the Museum of Vertebrate 

 Zoology in Berkeley. To the management of this institution and to its founder and 

 patroness, Miss Alexander, I tender my sincerest thanks for every courtesy. The 

 California Academy of Sciences, of San Francisco, and the Museum of History, Science 

 and Art, in Los Angeles, likewise placed every facility at my disposal, and I only regret 

 the limitations of time which precluded a more extended use of their excellent collections. 



The order of treatment observed in the following pages is substantially the reverse 

 of that long followed by the American Ornithologists' Union, and is justifiable princi- 

 pally on the ground that it follows a certain order of interest and convenience. Begin- 

 ning, as it does, with the supposedly highest forms of bird-life, it brings to the fore the 

 most familiar birds, and avoids that rude juxtaposition of the lowest form of one group 

 with the highest of the one above it which has been the confessed weakness of the 

 A. O. U. arrangement. 



The outlines of classification have been rehearsed in the Table of Contents to each 

 volume, and a brief synopsis of generic, family, and ordinal characters will be found in 

 the Analytical Keys at the end of the work. It has not been thought best to give large 

 place to these matters, nor to intrude them upon the text, both because of the enormous 

 labor involved in a really original digest, and because the more technical character of 

 these investigations would probably interest only a small proportion of our clientele. 

 Several excellent manuals already exist in this field, and to these the more intrepid 

 student is referred. 



The nomenclature is chiefly that of the A. O. U. Check-List, Third Edition, 

 revised to include more recent supplements. In a few instances attention has been 

 paid to outside suggestions, especially such as would tend to link up some of our Amer- 

 ican species of wide distribution with closely related European or Asiatic forms. I must 

 confess to having followed with a very special bias the opinions of our veteran taxono- 



