2 
INTRODUCTION 
change from the previous works, Birds of Eastern Canada and Birds of 
Western Canada , and many familiar with them may at first find the new 
arrangement difficult and confusing. However, once the readjustment is 
made the new system will seem as natural as the old. The change is 
inevitable if American ornithology is to keep in step with that of the rest 
of the world. The old system was antiquated and misleading and the 
change is already long delayed. The new system will probably be used for 
the next fifty years, the old one having been accepted for an equal period, 
so the sooner we learn it the better. 
Although the scientific nomenclature and taxonomy of the check-list 
have been followed closely, certain variations have been made from the 
vernacular adopted therein. These, however, are not serious and need 
cause no confusion. They consist mostly in the application of English 
names to the species. That this has, in some cases, necessitated the trans- 
ference of the check-list name of the type or first described subspecies to 
the more inclusive unit is regrettable, but it seems inevitable if we are to 
express true and logical relationship in the vernacular nomenclature. The 
fact is that certain scientific concepts have outgrown the traditional means 
of their popular expression. According to the original concept a species 
and its dependent subspecies were separate entities. The modern one is 
that a species is composed of co-ordinate subspecies. Under the earlier 
idea the form first described and named was regarded as the species; later 
discovered forms were viewed as subordinate variant subspecies. Thus 
we had the Song Sparrow, meaning thereby only the eastern race of Song 
Sparrows and regarding it as the species. The other races, the Dakota 
Song Sparrow, the Rusty Song Sparrows, et al, were inferior subspecies. 
This, too, in spite of the self-evident facts that all these are equally Song 
Sparrows of co-ordinate rank; that a first description confers no particular 
taxonomic patent of superiority; and that the form accidentally discovered 
first is in reality no more than one of the races of Song Sparrows which for 
historical and other convenience only we designate the “type race.” It is, 
in fact, only the eastern race of a widespread species of Song Sparrow. 
Under the more modern concept, all subspecies combine to form the 
species, which thus may be a group of subspecies the name of which should 
not be limited to any one of its component parts. The past editions of 
the check-list have well presented this in the scientific nomenclature, but 
have failed to adapt to it the vernacular system, which remains under the 
older and discarded concept. 
In Birds of Canada 1 it has been the aim to express, in the English or 
vernacular names, as accurate a relationship between species and sub- 
species as is in vogue in the scientific nomenclature, and to reduce to their 
relative taxonomic importance those minor subspecific differences that an 
earlier treatment has unduly emphasized. It will be too much to expect 
that the result attained will satisfy everyone: the writer hopes, however, 
that it will be accepted until the American Ornithologists’ Union committee 
take the matter up and make authoritative decisions. 
In the following pages the number and vernacular name, which have 
been taken from the American Ornithologists’ Union Check-list and modi- 
fied as little as possible, appear first as a specific heading in heavy type. 
1 The old "A.O.tJ. numbers” of the species have been retained in the new sequence, though the rearrangement 
has necessarily thrown them out of their natural order. They will assist the reader to co-ordinate the new 
system of classification with the old and may be specially useful to the amateur in connecting species whose names 
have been changed with their equivalents in the “Birds of Eastern Canada” and "Birds of Western Canada” books 
previously published by this department. 
