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United States National Museum . #» ^cparfmenf of the interior r. s. NATIONAL MUSEUM. BULLETIN UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM No. 2 6. 1VIFAUNA COLUMBIANA: BEING A LIST OF BIRDS ASCERTAINED TO INHABIT THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, WITH THE TIMES OF ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF SITU AS ARK NON-RESI- DENTS, AND BRIEF NOTICES OF HABITS, ETC. THE SECOND EDITION, I > I . R K V I S E D I I) A T K . A N ENTIRELY RE W R T T E N BY ELLIOTT COUES. M. D.. Ph. D., Professor of Anatomy in the National Medical f'ollege, etc., AND D. WEBSTER PRENTISS, A. M., M. D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in theJfational Medical College, etc, WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING- OFFICE. 1 8 8 3 ^PeparfmeTif of the inferior U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM. 32 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. No. 26. PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1883. ADVERTISEMENT. This work is the thirty-second of a series of papers intended to illus- trate the collections of natural history and ethnology belonging to the United States, and constituting the National Museum, of which the Smithsonian Institution was placed in charge by the act of Congress of August 10, 1846. It bas been prepared at the request of the Institution, and printed by authority of the honorable Secretary of the Interior. SPENCER F. BAIED, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, June 1st, 1883. AVIFAUNA COLUMBIANA LIST OF BIRDS ASCERTAINED TO INHABIT THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, WITH THE TIMES OF ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF SUCH AS ARE NON-RESIDENTS, AND BRIEF NOTICES OF HABITS, ETC. THE SECOND EDITION, REVISED TO DATE, AND ENTIRELY REWRITTEN. BY ELLIOTT COUES, M. D., PL D., Professor of An atom y in the National Medical College, etc., AND D. WEBSTER PRENTISS, A. M., M. D., Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the National Medical College, etc. WASHINGTON: GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 1883. CONTENTS. Page. I. —Literature of the Subject 7 II. —Location and Topography of the District 11 III. —General Character of the Avifauna 28 IV. —Annotated List of the Birds 33 V. —Summary and Recapitulation Ill VI.—Game Laws of the District 119 5 AVIFAUNA COLUMBIANA: BEING A LIST OF BIRDS ASCERTAINED TO INHABIT THE DISTRICT OF COLUM- BIA, WITH THE TIMES OF ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE OF SUCH AS ARE NON-RESIDENTS, AND BRIEF NOTICES OF HABITS, ETC. THE SECOND EDITION, REVISED TO DATE AND ENTIRELY REWRITTEN. BY ELLIOTT COUKS, HVE. D., I>h. D., Professor of Anatomy in the National Medical College, etc., AND T>. WEBSTER PRENTISS, A. JVC., ]Yt. D. Professor of Materia Medica and Therapeutics in the National Medical College, etc. I.—LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT. The authors of the "Avifauna Columbiana," while classmates in college at the Columbian University and still mere boys, became enthusiastic on the subject of Ornithology, as boys often do. They were constantly together, devoting all their spare time, which might not have been better employed, to the practical study of birds in the woods and fields. Large collections were made; careful and copious notes were taken of times of appearance and disappearance of birds, their relative abundance, resorts, food, song, nidification, and other habits. These observations became in a few years of some positive value. This was chiefly during the years 1858-1862, both inclusive. Soon after the outbreak of the War of the Kebellion, both authors, having meanwhile graduated in medicine, entered the Army as medical officers. One of them soon afterward settled in the practice of his profession in Washington ; the other led for many years the vagabond life of an Army surgeon 5 and the exigencies of their respective avocations long pre. vented each from paying any further attention to the subject which had brightened their college days and cemented a life-long friendship. Meanwhile, however, at the suggestion and through the kind atten- tions of Professor Baird, their early experiences in Ornithology resulted in a " List of the Birds of the District of Columbia," etc., which was published in 1862 in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution for 1861, pp. 399-421. After the lapse of nearly a quarter of a century 7 8 AVIFAUNA COLUMBIANA. they may be permitted to refer to that production with some little pride, as to one which has stood the test of time better than boys' work gen- erally does. The original " List" was necessarily brief, owing to the fact that the limitations imposed by law upon the size of the volume in which it was printed prevented any extended presentation of their ob- servations. They had on hand, or in head, material which, had circum- stances been entirely favorable, it would have been well to publish, but which is little likely to be recovered now that time has softened the outlines of original observations, and wrought what were fresh and clean-cut then into the shadowy shapes of far-away pleasant perspective. In preparing the present article as one of a series in which, following the lead of Prof. Lester F. Ward's admirable Flora, it is proposed to set forth the Fauna of the District, the authors have in effect simply made a second edition of their "List," as stated in the title. There has been found little to correct, because the original "List" contained scarcely any- thing erroneous; and not much to add, of the authors' own knowledge, because they have paid little attention to the subject during the inter- vening years. They have, however, entirely recast the article; em- bodied the additions to the list made meanwhile by others ; extended their remarks on the habits of birds in many cases; included a more elab- orate notice of the Topography of the District with reference to the local distribution of the birds; and added the Game Laws now in force in the District. They have also noted, as far as their knowledge enabled them to do so, the changes in the Avifauna resulting from the growth of a great city. Twenty or twenty-five years ago, with a population of about C0,000, the National Capital was a mud-puddle in winter, a dust-heap in summer, a cow-pen and pig-sty all the year round ; there was good snipe- shooting within the city limits, and the country all about was as primitive as the most enthusiastic naturalist could desire. But with the assistance of Mr. Alexander Shepherd, who ought to have a statue, we have changed all that; Washington has grown up to 180,000, and become "citified" into quite a respectable establishment; the suburban wilderness has been reclaimed from Nature and largely given over to Art; while Ornithology has long been more assiduously and successfully pursued within than without the walls of the Smithsonian Institution. Besides all this, we have the Sparrows now. The original "List" represented probably the first attempt at any formal enumeration of the Birds of the District of Columbia—perhaps the first local Fauna. At any rate, no earlier thing of the kind has come to our knowledge. A little book entitled " Washington Described," which had been published just previously by Philp & Solomons, con- tained cursory notices of the natural history of the District, prepared anonymously by several of the resident naturalists; and among these was a slight sketch of the Ornithology by one of the present writers. Botany had been much more cultivated, by members of the old Bo- tanical Club, which preceded the Potomac-side Naturalists' Club; the : ; LITERATURE OF THE SUBJECT. 9 result of their labors forming the groundwork of Ward's Flora,, already mentioned. As a matter of fact, the present authors had little to go upon beyond the records of a very few rare specimens which had been taken from time to time and were preserved in the Smithsonian collection though Mr. C. Drexler was then the taxidermist of the Institution, and a diligent and successful collector, whose results were within their reach ; while the markets occasionally afforded him and them specimens that might not otherwise have been noted. The " List" presented a summary of 44 permanent residents ; 44 win- ter residents; 59 summer residents; 54 regular visitants, or migrants neither summering nor wintering with us ; and 25 accidental visitants, or stragglers, making a total of 226. There were also indicated 15 " probabilities," not, however, enumerated. On reviewing the subject, the authors find that only one species (Podiceps cristatus, inserted by mistake) is to be eliminated. This leaves a list of 225 species as the basis of the present article. Before noticing the accessions to the list since 1862, however, the authors should refer to Mr. Jouy's Catalogue of 1877. Though there have been meanwhile various detached notices of Wash- ington Birds in the Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club and elsewhere, by the present and other authors, Mr. Jouy's is the only com- plete list which has since appeared. This was published in May, 1877, in Vol. ii, No. 11, of "Field and Forest," t pp. 191-193, entitled: "Cata- logue of the Birds of the District of Columbia." It was immediately reprinted, together with some remarks we offered on the same occa- sion, in a few separate copies entitled : " Catalogue of the Birds of the District of Columbia, Prepared by Pierre Louis Jouy, with Bemarks on the Birds of the District, by Drs. Coues and Prentiss." (1877. 8vo. Washington, pp. 1-11.) This was simply a list of names, without an- notation ; the stragglers indicated by an asterisk, the additions to the old Coues and Prentiss List printed in italics. Mr.
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