ACKNOWLEDGMENT 



For help in planning this book, for sharing his bird- 

 notes with the writer, and for a critical reading of 

 the manuscript, acknowledgment should be made to 

 Mr. Robert J. Sim. Certain events in the lives of Eve 

 and Petro and little Solomon Otus are told with refer- 

 ence to his observations of eave-swallows and screech 

 owls; his trip to an island off the Maine coast for gull- 

 sketches added greatly to an acquaintance with Larie; 

 and but for his six-weeks' visit with the loons of '' Immer 

 Lake,'' much of the story of Gavia could not have been 

 told. Since Mr. Sim contributed not only the pictures 

 to the book, but many items of interest to the nar- 

 rative, it gives the writer pleasure to acknow^ledge his 

 cooperation, both as artist and as field-naturalist. 



Edith M. Patch. 



