Jan., 1909 
HISTORY OF COLORADO ORNITHOLOGY 
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1875 as United States Geological Survey reports. This work contains specific Col- 
orado records of 170 species of which 14 are recorded for the first time. 
In 1877 Robert Ridgway publisht the first complete list of the birds in the 
Maxwell collection at Boulder. This wonderful collection gathered and prepared 
by Mrs. Maxwell contained 234 species of birds, 21 of which were recorded for the 
first time for Colorado in Mr. Ridgway’s list. 
In 1878 Coues’ “Birds of the Colorado Valley’’ appeared, but it does not play 
an important part in our subject as most of the ornithological information con- 
tained in it is copied from the Henshaw report of 1875. 
Now, in looking back over the work done by these pioneer naturalists, we rec- 
ognize a steady and comparatively rapid development, which had its beginning in 
1823. In this short space of fifty-four years the basis of our present knowledge of 
Colorado ornithology was firmly laid, and our pioneer ornithology really ends with 
1877; for from that year up to date the 108 species which have been added to our 
list have been recorded separately or in very small numbers, with the exception of 
Cooke’s “Birds of Colorado’’, publisht in 1897, which added nineteen new species 
to the check list. In fact during this period of twenty years no more than nine 
new species have been recorded for the State at any one time, this being a list by 
Horace G. Smith publisht in the Nidiologist in 1896, which with five new species 
recorded by him in 1886 makes a total of fourteen species recorded for the first 
time by him. 
Thus it will be seen at a glance that the basis of our present knowledge of 
this subject may be attributed to Thomas Say, Spencer F. Baird, J. A. Allen, C. 
E. Aiken, Robert Ridgway, H. W. Henshaw, Horace G. Smith and W. W. Cooke, 
a group of names of which not only Colorado but indeed North America at large 
may well be proud. 
Up to this point our attention has been focused almost entirely upon the 
development of the subject thru the addition of new species to our check-list, and 
as a matter of fact, up to this time, these additions have been the matter of prime 
importance; but from now on, with the great bulk of native species known and 
recorded, the addition of new species assumes its proper place as simply an inci- 
dental phase of the subject; and the more intricate and important phase of orni- 
thology, the life histories of the birds, takes its place. The stupendous task of 
working out the breeding range, seasonal movements, migration, food habits, 
economic value, and subspecific nomenclature had its beginning as far back as our 
first information on ornithology dates; but these first efforts were very unimportant 
as compared with the work which has been done since. Not until the time of 
Aiken and Allen in the early seventies was any systematic work done along these 
lines; and it is a notable fact that the observations of some of the pioneer natural- 
ists are, even up to the present time, considered the standard w r orks along these 
lines. Two notable instances of this fact are the field notes of C. E. Aiken and 
T. M. Trippe. 
But with this new branch of the subject come many new names; and instead 
of a few authorities publishing a few pretentious and more or less comprehensive 
works, we find a larger number of authorities recording valuable additions to our 
information on the subject as magazine articles, or in similar ways. Thus from 
1877 to 1897 a great deal of data was publisht by a number of naturalists, much 
of it being of a purely local nature; but from the fact that it was local it was 
doubly valuable, in that the sum total of this local work made possible the very 
comprehensive resume of the subject that was publisht by Cooke in 1897, 
