PREFACE. ix 



ticiilars the most interesting, because hitherto the most obscure 

 and unsatisfactorily treated, of all others in the whole science of 

 ornithology. 



The author has now only to add, that as far as an acquisition 

 of these depends on his own personal exertions, in ransacking our 

 fields and forests, our sea shores, lakes, marshes and rivers; and 

 in searching out and conversing with experienced and intelligent 

 sportsmen and others on whose information he can venture to rely, 

 he pledges himself, that no difficulty, fatigue or danger, shall deter 

 him from endeavouring to collect information from every authentic 

 source; hopeful that the able and enlightened friends of that Coun- 

 try whose Natural History he is thus endeavouring to illustrate, will 

 not leave him unsupported. 



ALEXANDER WILSON, 



Philadelphia^ January 1, 1810. 



VOL. II. 



C 



