Type specimens of birds in the United States National Museum

The author's study of the types of birds preserved in the national collection, initiated in 1945, was terminated in the spring of 1960. While the national collection of birds came into existence in 1850 with the deposit of Spencer Fullerton Baird's private collection that became the nucleus of what would become one of the world's great collections, many of the specimens recorded in the this bulletin are of earlier date than 1850.