Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Birds of the Colorado Valley: A Repository of Scientific and Popular Information Concerning North American Ornithology
Since the appearance of the Birds of the Northwest it has been a matter of frequently expressed regret that the accounts of the birds treated in that volume did not include such descrip tions of the species as should enable those using the work to identify specimens they might have in hand. It has been deemed advisable to supply this want in the present treatise, especially as a considerable proportion of the characteristic birds of the Colorado Valley are not so well known as are most of those inhabiting the region of the Missouri. The descrip tions are original, in nearly every case having been drawn up by the author directly from the specimens themselves, with great regard to precision of concise statement. All the species ascertained to occur in the Valley of the Colorado, being those which form the special subject of the work, are thus treated, the other North American birds of which the volume takes account being introduced only with their synonymy and a brief state ment of the habitat of each.
Respecting the biographies or life-histories of the birds, which constitute the main text of the present volume, the author's view, that this portion of the subject should be so far divested of technicality as to meet the tastes and wants of the public rather than the scientific requirements of the schoolmen in ornithology, will doubtless meet with general and emphatic approval. It is possible to make natural history entertaining and attractive as well as instructive, with no loss in scientific precision, but with great gain in stimulating, strengthening and confirming the wholesome in?uence which the study of the natural sciences may exert upon the higher grades of mental culture; nor is it a matter of little moment to so shape the knowledge which results from the naturalist's labors that its increase may be susceptible of the widest possible difiusion.
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