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the magnitude of the task will be apparent.

In the meantime, a fair commencement of the greater work has been made at my house, during hours which could not employed on other Museum work, (i.e. evenings, after office hours, - one day only, October 31, having been so employed), the families, [[strikethrough]] [[underline]] Colymbidae [[/underline]], [[underline]] Urinatoridae [[/underline]] and [[underline]] Alcidae [[/underline]], having been completed. These consisting exclusively of North American species, could be worked up without recourse to specimens, the Museum material having twice previous been gone over carefully, when preparing the copy for the [[underline]] Water Birds of North American [[/underline]] (Baird, Brewers and Ridgway), and the [[underline]] Manual of North American Birds [[/underline]], it being necessary for the new work, to [[arrow]] simply rearrange & revise, and otherwise adapt the matter which has already been printed in the above-mentioned publications. In addition to having disposed of the three families before mentioned. There also nearly completed a revised list of the species to be trusted. The list which I had first prepared, including only the Mexican and Central American species.