PREFACE. 
The present Atlas has been prepared for the two-fold purpose of completing the series 
of illustrations of the Birds of North America, and to give accurate and easily recognized 
figures of the numerous hitherto unknown birds described in the first volume. It contains 
figures of all birds inhabiting the United States which have not been given by former 
American authors, in connexion with whose works it continues and concludes, as far as 
possible, to the present time the pictorial representation of all North American birds. In 
the accompanying volume of text will be found descriptions of all the known birds of the 
United States ; their arrangement in the genera and families of modern zoologists ; their 
geographical distribution; and, it is believed, everything necessary to a complete and 
thorough knowledge of this favorite department of the natural history of oui- country. 
In 1843 the distinguished ornithologist, Mr. Audubon, brought to a completion the second 
and last edition of his great work on the Birds of North America, in which are given faithful 
and accurate representations of nearly five hundred species. This elaborate work included 
all the birds known to that celebrated author as inhabiting the continent of America north 
of Mexico. 
In 1853 Mr. Cassin commenced the publication of a work entitled "Illustrations of the 
Birds of California, Texas, Oregon, and British and Russian America : intended to contain 
descriptions and figures of all North American birds not given by former American authors, 
and a general synopsis of North American Ornithology." Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott 
k Co. The first series, containing plates of fifty species not given by Audubon, was com- 
pleted in 1855, and has not been extended, having been superseded by the present Avork. 
Many of the birds of the United States, not included in the works of the preceding or 
other American authors, having been collected by the several parties for the Survey of a 
Railroad Route to the Pacific Ocean, and of the Boundary between the United States and 
Mexico, as mentioned in the preface to volume I of this work, they were figured in the 
reports of these expeditions published by Congress under the direction of the War and 
Interior Departments. All of these birds appear in the present volume, but, in almost 
every instance, redrawn from better and more characteristic specimens. Of the one hun- 
VOL. II 1 
