92 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



birds and made me buy bird books and 

 field glasses ; but I cannot recall the 

 first incentive. 



My family has always laughed at me 

 for being a rider of hobbies, and the 

 greeting that is most familiar is, — 

 "Well, what particular hobby are you 

 riding now?" 



Suffice to say that seven or eight 

 years ago something moved me to sup- 

 ply myself with a few standard works 

 on our native birds — particularly those 

 of New England and New York. Be- 



up one thing after another and been 

 so interested that I have given time 

 and study to a particular thing for 

 perhaps a year, perhaps two or three 

 years, when something new would crop 

 up to arouse a keen interest and be- 

 come a temporary hobby in its turn. 



The study of birds has proved so 

 delightful, so fascinating and so rich 

 in rewarding every effort to add to ones 

 knowledge, that I wish I could find 

 words wherewith to tempt others to 

 follow in my footsteps. The essentials 



A CORNER IN THE LIBRARY AND A VISTA OF THE HALL. 

 (The books are on the two sides of the library not shown in the illustration.) 



fore this, had anyone asked me to name 

 all the birds indigenous to this locality 

 or the names of all the birds I had ever 

 seen, not counting museum or captive 

 birds, I doubt if I could have counted 

 more than a dozen. I should have 

 considered the following a complete 



are a good book on our native birds 

 a pair of field glasses, (the stronger 

 the better) a little patience and a quick 

 eye. 



My reward for keeping my eyes open 

 and training them to record the mark- 

 ings of birds, then looking in my books 



list : sparrows, robins, crows, high- so as to verify my identifications, more 



holders (flickers), wrens, swallows 

 bluebirds, blackbirds, Baltimore orioles 

 (very rarely seen), sea-gull, owls 

 hawks, the humming-bird and the cat- 

 bird, and though I have never seen 

 them, I knew there were eagles, fish 

 hawks, vultures and a few others. 



than repaid me for any little trouble 

 involved ; for at the end of fourteen 

 months from the time I began to ob- 

 serve the birds, I found according to 

 my list, that I had seen and postively 

 identified one hundred and twenty-six 

 and that without leaving my own place 

 Now it is quite true that I have taken Of course some of these were migrants; 



