Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Wild Fowl of the United States and British Possessions: Or the Swan, Geese, Ducks, and Mergansers of North America
This volume is arranged on the same plan as those of the Shore Birds and Gallinaceous Game Birds, now pretty familiar to my readers. The species, how ever, which are contained in this book are fairly well known to most people, at all events the males are; but as the females of different kinds often resemble each other closely, I have endeavored in the Keys, when necessary, to draw comparisons between them and call attention to their most marked characteristics. In the arrangement of the Family, occasionally in the selection of genera necessary to designate the different groups, and in cer tain cases also, in the choice of specific names, as well as in the general disposition of the species, I have found myself obliged to depart widely from the method adopted in the A. O. U. Check List, which seems in a great degree to have been constructed without sufficient consideration of the affinities the North American Anatidae might pos sess to the exotic members of the Family. Of course no natural arrangement is possible, for none exists, but I have endeavored to bring together those groups which were most in accord and produce a proper order of suc cession, although fully aware that gaps occur.
N 0 birds vary more, even if as much, in their relative dimensions, as do the members of this family. Not only is there great divergence among the species of a genus, but also even among those which are members of the same species. In fact it is not easy to find any two Ducks or Geese which are exactly alike in all their measurements. To ascertain how great these differences are, it is only necessary to consult Mr. Ridgway's Manual, when it will be seen that for a large proportion of these birds an average measurement is given, instead of an exact one, and I have found so much variation existing that in many cases, when the dimension of a species is recorded.
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