Forty-first supplement to the American Ornithologists' Union Check-list of North American birds

This seventh supplement after the publication of the 6^th edition (1983) of the AOU Check-list of North American Birds includes taxonomic and nomenclatural changes adopted by the Committee on Classification and Nomenclature between 15 March 1995 and 15 March 1997. Because this will be the last supplement before the publication of the 7^th edition of the Check-list, it also summarizes other decisions made by the Committee since 1983 that were not intended to affect the 6^th edition but rather were to lay the foundation for its successor. Most of those decisions relate to sequence or rank of certain taxonomic categories. The Committee believes that compendia such as the Check-list are not appropriate places for the first appearance of novel taxonomic treatments or rearrangements. Therefore, we take the opportunity of this supplement to inform you of the ways in which the 7^th edition will differ from the 6^th. The style of this supplement differs from that of the previous six because they were designed to provide detailed changes to the text in the 6^th edition; this one also is to provide information on how the 7^th edition will differ from the 6^th. Many details on reasons for the change will be discussed in the Preface or text of the new volume.