HOW TO NAME THE BIRDS.
Connecticut, and in Maine not for a week or two later. The breeding-haunts are indicated, and the nest and eggs men-tioned, when they are either accessible to the student, or, when belonging to northern latitudes, of special interest. The range of the bird for the year is taken from the Checklist of the American Ornithologists' Union, which is the acknowledged authority. The nomenclature is also that of the A. O. U. Check-list, the first English name and the Latin title being according to its tenets. In some cases I have added one or more English names, because they are universally understood and are more or less used in the manuals and state publications.
In modern science, classification follows the method of natural evolution, grading from the lowest forms to the highest. Under this system the Diving Water-birds should head the list, and the Thrush Family of Song-birds end it. Some time ago a different system obtained, that of beginning with the highest orders and descending in the scale, and the birds in this book are so arranged. The reason for doing this is that it presents the Song-birds first, and it is to these that you will be first attracted, and, finding many of them familiar, you will be led by easy stages to the Birds of Prey and the Water-birds, which probably you have had less chance to know. If, however, you prefer to habituate yourself to the more modern method, all that you have to do is to begin at the end of the book and work backward.
The two hundred birds chosen for description from the A. O. U. list of over nine hundred species of North American Birds are selected as being those which will be the most likely to interest bird-lovers living in the temperate parts of the country, and especially in the Middle and Eastern States. If birds are included that are rarer (in other locali-ties) than species that are omitted, it is owing to marked characteristics or some interesting traits of the particular birds.
The mazes of classification are omitted. As a novice who wishes to recognize the birds by sight, you have no need of their services beyond learning the English and Latin names
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