Introduction to the species’ accounts

Abstract

The morphometrical information is presented per species or per species complex. The sequence of chapters follows Voous’ (1973) species order. The spelling of the American names of species follows Hayman et al. (1986). Each chapter starts with describing the breeding distribution and the present-day knowledge on morphometrical variation and systematics. Data analysis starts with a section on morphometrical differentiation. The importance of the various measurements is analysed. Since often only wing- and culmen lengths are measured in studies with live-trapped birds, the morphometric variation with these 2 variables is investigated. It is also analysed whether the scoring of different plumage characters improved the descriptions on geographical variation. The following section concerns the prediction of breeding origin as based on the described geographical variation. The quality of prediction is evaluated by estimating the degrees of accuracy and exclusivity (see Introduction under Statistical analys is of the data).