[Illustration: 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 regarded with especial interest wherever the sciences have been cultivated since the discovery of the continent. There never has been a period, however, in which such extensive and productive research has been carried on, as in that which commenced with the annexation of Texas to the United States, and in which also California and New Mexico have become parts of the Union. The extension of the laws of the United States over these vast countries, and the consequent protection and personal safety, have induced the visits of scientific travellers;—numerous Government expeditions for the purposes of exploration and survey have been necessary, and have been despatched on such missions with the utmost promptness and vigilance of the public good by all administrations of the General Government, in the period to which we allude, and have almost invariably been accompanied by officers specially charged with making observations and collections in Natural History. The Smithsonian Institution also has exerted an influence in the highest degree favorable and important in the development of the Natural History of this country, as in other departments of science and literature.