Book Description

Excerpt from Catalogue Canadian Birds In compiling this catalogue of the birds of Canada, the author has endeavoured to bring together facts on the range and nesting habits of all birds known to reside in, migrate to or visit, the northern part of the continent. In addition to the Dominion of Canada he has therefore included Newfoundland, Greenland and Alaska. The nomenclature and the numbers given in the latest edition and supplements of the Check-list published by the American Ornithologists' Union have been made the basis of arrangement of the catalogue. The order followed in the notes on each bird is from east to west. Greenland is generally cited first and British Columbia and Alaska last. As the catalogue is intended to be a popular and practical one, the English names of the birds are placed first, but the species are arranged in their scientific order and in accordance with the latest nomenclature. While recognizing the differences upon which many of the technical names have been based, the writer holds that some of them, depending as they do upon local and almost upon individual variations from a common type, possess from any practical or educational standpoint but a minor value. To an investigator of changes resulting from environment such differences are of great interest, but to any one anxious only to obtain the facts in regard to the distribution of our birds as readily determinable, they are unimportant. Since the publication of the Fauna Borcali Americana by Swain-son and Richardson, in 1831, no attempt has been made to produce a work dealing with the ornithology of the region now embraced in the Dominion of Canada. In the work referred to, the authors include separate notices of all birds that had been recorded north of Lat. 48 . Two hundred and forty species are described and twenty-seven additional West Coast species are added, making a total of two hundred and sixty-seven species known at that date. No attempt was subsequently made to catalogue the birds of Canada as a whole until 1887, when Mr. Montague Chamberlain, of St. John, New Brunswick, published A Catalogue of Canadian Birds with Notes on the distribution of the Species. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."