X INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



understanding of birds out-of-doors and the problems 

 which their Ufe presents. 



In a recent article Mr. Scott said, " I think that in 

 every community there are enough people interested in 

 out-of-door life to cooperate in a movement to establish 

 a kindly relation with wild creatures." This is the key- 

 note of his work and his life, and it is because the pub- 

 lishers of this book have felt that all the men and 

 women who love nature — bird nature as well as human 

 nature — should know of the growth and causes of this 

 desire to understand the ways and characters of the 

 birds — for birds have individual as well as tribal char- 

 acteristics — that Mr. Scott has been asked to tell how, 

 step by step, he acquired his knowledge, through obser- 

 vation, out-of-doors exploration, training of the senses, 

 and (but in less degree) through books and tuition. 



Mr. Scott is a graduate of Harvard, where he was a 

 pupil of Louis Agassiz. In spite of a lameness which 

 compels him to walk, even in the house, with caution 

 and with the aid of a cane, he has travelled all over the 

 United States, pursuing his study of the life and char- 

 acter of the bird in its out-of-door, natural surroundings. 

 Not one of the least interesting things about his achieve- 

 ment is the fact that a physical impediment which would 

 be considered by many people to be an almost insu- 

 perable obstacle in his path as a naturaUst, has really 

 turned out to be an advantage and aid. He is the 

 author of numerous scientific papers and of a compre- 

 hensive and elaborately printed and illustrated work on 

 birds entitled ** Bird Studies." He lays great stress 

 on the principle that sympathy and love of the beautiful 

 are bound to come through a friendship established with 

 any kind of organic Ufe, whether that organic life be a 



