48 Ornithology. 
six orders of land and three of water birds. From this time the 
divisions were varied too greatly, and too rapidly for enumera¬ 
tion here. Suffice it to say, that for many years the pathway 
of ornithological science seemed to be hedged up, by conflicting 
classifications. In the survey of the several routes for railroads 
across the continent to the Pacific, the government provided 
for a very extensive collection of the birds, (and all other ma¬ 
terial of scientific interest), and committed their arrangement 
and classification to Prof. S. F. Baird, assistant secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution. After due deliberation he adopted a 
classification founded upon those of Keyserling, Blasius, Cab- 
anis, Bonaparte, and Burmeister, modern European authorities, 
which modified classification has, by a tacit consent, come to 
be accepted as authority in this country. At least, the amateur 
ornithologist cannot do better, than to follow him in his studies 
of the science, until, by his own attainments, he shall be com¬ 
petent to follow him in that higher precedent of selecting from 
all sources, a system of classification still more perfectly con¬ 
formed to nature. 
With this brief allusion to the history of the methods of class¬ 
ification in ornithology, we will pass to the consideration of 
what we have been able to learn of the birds of our own State. 
Their earliest history, so far as yet known, begins with some 
casual observations made by the officers of the various fortifica¬ 
tions within the present boundaries of the State. Some of 
these men were eminently prepared, by their general culture 
and habits of study, as well as by their superior sportsmanship, 
to give us observations of surpassing interest, in most depart¬ 
ments of natural history; but, what little they have left us is 
principally confined to the game birds. A few of them pre¬ 
served meagre notes, confined chiefly to the aquatic species. 
From some of the more observing, we have been able to gather, 
in fireside conversations over the dying embers of reminiscence, 
desultory accounts of their migrations, and relative number as 
compared with the present. Yet, on the whole, very little is 
known of them before about 1850, when the settlement of the 
country had been fairly begun. Abounding as it does, with 
lakes, ponds, lagoons, rivers, and smaller streams of water, 
