Plate 1
The Mexican Jay
Cyanocorax luxuosus (Lesson)
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF THE
BIRDS
OF
CALIFORNIA, TEXAS, OREGON, BRITISH AND RUSSIAN AMERICA.
INTENDED TO CONTAIN DESCRIPTIONS AND FIGURES
OF ALL
North American Birds
NOT GIVEN BY FORMER AMERICAN AUTHORS,
AND A
GENERAL SYNOPSIS OF NORTH AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY.
BY
JOHN CASSIN,
MEMBER OF THE ACADEMY OF NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA; OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA; OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE; OF THE SOUTH CAROLINA NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY; OF THE NEW YORK LYCEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY; OF THE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF MONTREAL, ETC. ETC.
1853 TO 1855.
PHILADELPHIA:
J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
1856.
Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by
JOHN CASSIN,
in the Clerk’s office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
PREFACE.
The natural history of North America has been regardedwith especial interest wherever the sciences have been cultivatedsince the discovery of the continent. There never has been aperiod, however, in which such extensive and productive researchhas been carried on, as in that which commenced with the annexationof Texas to the United States, and in which also Californiaand New Mexico have become parts of the Union. The extensionof the laws of the United States over these vast countries, and theconsequent protection and personal safety, have induced the visitsof scientific travellers;—numerous Government expeditions for thepurposes of exploration and survey have been necessary, and havebeen despatched on such missions with the utmost promptness andvigilance of the public good by all administrations of the GeneralGovernment, in the period to which we allude, and have almostinvariably been accompanied by officers specially charged withmaking observations and collections in Natural History. TheSmithsonian Institution also has exerted an influence in the highestdegree favorable and important in the development of the NaturalHistory of this country, as in other departments of science andliterature.
These are the main and immediate causes of the great stridesthat the knowledge of the natural productions of North Americahas made within a period of little upwards of twenty years. Thereare, of course, others, of which the general diffusion of knowledgeand attention to education in the United States especially, and infact throughout the civilized world, have been perhaps the mostefficient.
Since the time of the publication of the works of our predecesso