22 SUGGESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FIELD-WORK. 



the feet of Proserpine, Birds flit by as you measure the tired 

 roadside, lendiug a tithe of their life to quicken j^our dusty 

 steps. They disport overhead at hide-and-seek with the foliage 

 as you loiter in the shade of the forest, and their music now 

 answers the sigh of the tree-tops, now ripples an echo to the 

 voice of the brook. But you will not always so pluck a thorn- 

 less rose. Birds hedge themselves about with a bristling 

 girdle of brier and bramble you cannot break ; they build their 

 tiny castles in the air surrounded by impassable moats, and 

 the drawbridges are never down. They crown the mountain- 

 top you may lose your breath to climb ; they sprinkle the desert 

 where your parched lips may find no cooling draught ; they 

 fleck the snow-wreath when the nipping blast may make you 

 turn your back ; they breathe unharmed the pestilent vapors 

 of the swamp that mean disease, if not death, for you ; they 

 outride the storm at sea that sends strong men to their last 

 account. Where now will you look for birds ? 



§14. And yet, as skilled labor is always most productive, 

 so expert search yields more than random or blundering pur- 

 suit. Imprimis; The more varied the face of a countr}-, the 

 more varied its birds. A place all plain, all marsh, all wood- 

 land, yields its particular set of birds, perhaps in profusion ; 

 but the kinds will be limited in number. It is of first impor- 

 tance to remember this, when you are so fortunate as to have 

 choice of a collecting-gro,und ; and it will guide your steps 

 aright in a day's walk anywhere, for it will make you leave 

 covert for open, wet for dry, high for low and back again. 

 Well-watered country is more fruitful of bird-life than desert or 

 even prairie ; warm regions are more productive than cold ones. 

 As a rule, variety and abundance of birds are in direct ratio to 

 diversity and luxuriance of vegetation. Your most valuable as 

 well as largest bags may be made in the regions most favored 

 botauically, up to the point where exuberance of plant-growth 

 mechanically opposes your operations. 



§15. Search for particular birds can only be well directed, 



