INTRODUCTION. XV 



obtaining a very considerable number of birds, chiefly waders, which 

 assemble in flocks at the mouth of Hayes River, previous to taking 

 their departure southwards on the setting in of the frost *. Mr. 

 Sabine, who wrote the Zoological Appendix to the Narrative of that 

 Expedition, notices seventy-one species of birds. Want of leisure, 

 however, caused him to omit several of the waders, and a portion 

 of the collection never reached him, being lost after its arrival in 

 England. 



On the second Expedition specimens of birds were collected at 

 Fort Franklin, on Great Bear Lake, in the spring of 1826, between 

 the 8th of May and 14th of June, being the periods of the first 

 arrival of the migratory birds and the commencement of our voyage 

 to the coast ; and, in 1827, the months of April and May and one-half 

 of June were devoted to the same purpose at Carlton and Cumberland 

 House, on the banks of the Saskatchewan. Having the able assistance 

 of Mr. Drummond in the latter period, the bulk of the collection was 

 then formed. Mr. Drummond also shot two or three species on the 

 declivity of the Rocky mountains that were not seen elsewhere ; and 

 a very few were prepared in the course of our summer journeys. 



It is evident, from the short time allotted to the task, that we 

 could hope to obtain only the more common birds. The Prince of 

 Musignano enumerates a somewhat greater number of species in his 

 Synopsis of American Birds, than those contained in Temminck's 

 Manual of European Ornithology ; and as the country we traversed 

 north of the Great Lakes exceeds in extent the whole of Europe lying 

 higher than the forty- eighth degree of latitude, we shall not, perhaps, 

 err greatly in ascribing to the Fur-countries as great a variety as 

 Europe presents within the same parallels. 



The present work contains two hundred and forty species, and 

 above twenty-seven in addition are described by Pennant and Vigors 



* This was the only autumn collection made on either Expedition, and we regret that we have not 

 been able to avail ourselves of it, so much as we could have wished, in drawing up the present work. 

 Exclusive of the specimens above alluded to as having been entirely lost, many were destroyed by 

 moths in London ; and the only portion of the collection which I can now trace are forty specimens, 

 which were presented to the Museum of the University of Edinburgh, and are still in good order. 



