90 



as to the "Birds Injurious to Agriculture." Such useless lists disfigure too many 

 agricultural and horticultural reports. The fact is we do not know enough regard- 

 ing the food and habits of individual species to determine what birds, if any, may 

 be ruthlessly destroyed, and probably all legislation as to birds should be protective. 

 To discriminate in favor of some species is to attempt to right the balance of 

 nature's forces. Not until such workers as Gentry, of Philadelphia, and Prof. 

 Forbes, of Bloomington, 111., have pronounced upon the contents of the stomachs 

 of our species at large will we have any basis for thorough legislation. 



In the preparation of this list I have made free use of Dr. D, S. Jordan's 

 "Manual of the Vertebrates of the Northern United States." This little book is 

 the vade meawi of the student of our fishes, reptiles, birds and mammals, and its 

 arrangement and verbiage, as reduced from Dr. Coues' "Key to North American 

 Birds," has been freely followed. Dr. Coues' "Birds of the Northwest," and 

 "Birds of the Colorado Valley" have furnished many apt quotations in his charm- 

 ing and often racy style, which I have inserted because of their intrinsic value, 

 and because they are at present buried in generally inaccessible government reports. 

 Thoreau and Burroughs, the well-known poet-naturalists, have furnished their 

 happy thoughts, and even the grave Emersonian muse has been solicited, as 

 well as the professional poets, for I deem it well that we look to the bird-thought, 

 and not to his claw and stomach alone. 



To my friend and former pupil in Natural History, and m.y after teacher in Orni- 

 thology, Mr, E. W. Nelson, U. S. A., St. Michaels, Alaska, I am under especial 

 obligations for the notes in his list of "Birds of North-eastern Illinois (Bulletin of 

 the Essex Institute), which Dr. Coues pithily characterizes as " a thoroughly good 

 list, annotated of three hundred and sixteen species and several varieties." The 

 birds about Chicago are essentially those of North-western Indiana. For the 

 South-eastern part of the State, we have F. W. Langdon's List of the "Birds of 

 the Vicinity of Cincinnati." I have supplied a few notes for the central region of 

 the State, while the south-west corner of the State has furnished no local list, 

 although such an one would doubtless add several species not included here. 



Finally, as an apology for errors and omissions that may be in this list, to the 

 naturalist I would say that it has been prepared on only two weeks' notice, and 

 that while the writer has been daily engaged in professional duties. 



Very respectfully submitted, 



ALEMBERT W. BRAYTON, M. D., 



Teacher Natural History Indianapolis High School, Professor Chetnistry and Toxi- 

 cology Central College Physicians and Surgeons, Indianapolis, Ind, 



