INTRODUCTION. XI 



not only in preparing many specimens, but in drawing up minute 

 descriptions of all the quadrupeds and birds he could obtain, adding 

 their native names, with notices of their nidification, food, and habits. 

 His observations *, which, in fact, embrace almost all that has been 

 recorded of the habits of the Hudson's Bay birds up to the present 

 time, being communicated to Latham and Pennant, are incorporated 

 in the " General Synopsis of Birds," and in " Arctic Zoology." 

 Indeed, Pennant, in some instances, appears to have adopted Mr. 

 Hutchins's descriptions, though unaccompanied by specimens, pre- 

 fixing the names of nearly -resembling European birds, which an 

 actual comparison would have shown to have been quite distinct ; 

 and in this way several species have been enumerated in systematic 

 works as natives of Hudson's Bay, which do not actually exist there. 

 On the other hand, Mr. Hutchins has distinctly noticed a few species 

 which have been but very lately admitted into the ornithological 

 systems. 



Captain Cook's third voyage, in 1777-8, contains some information 

 respecting the animals of the north-west coasts of America and 

 Behring's Straits, but, unfortunately, no figures of the birds were 

 published ; and the compendious notices which are contained in the 

 works of Pennant and Latham, defective as they are in details of 

 structure, are, in many instances, insufficient to enable us to identify 

 the species, or to ascertain their proper situation in the system. The 

 specimens themselves, collected on this and Cook's other voyages, of 

 unrivalled extent and interest, which ought to have been carefully 

 preserved for reference in a national museum, have either gone to 

 enrich foreign collections, or are entirely lost to science. 



Pennant's " Arctic Zoology," which appeared in 1785, contains the 

 fullest account of the birds of Arctic America which has hitherto 

 been published. It embraces the species introduced by Latham in 

 his " Synopsis," which was then in course of publication ; but, in 

 common with other ornithological works of that period, it includes 

 many specific names, attached merely to a different state of plumage, 



* In one volume folio, in the Library of the Hudson's Bay Company. 



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