PREFACE 



We find to-day some thirteen or fourteen thousand 

 different forms, or species, of birds upon the earth. For 

 many years ornithologists have laboured to name, and to 

 arrange in some rational order, these multitudinous forms 

 of bird life. Some such arrangement is, of course, a neces- 

 sity — without a handle we should indeed be handicapped 

 in studying a bird; but let us not forget that classification 

 is but a means to an end. 



Far too many students of birds follow some such mode 

 of procedure as this: When a new bird is found, it is shot, 

 labelled, preserved in a collection and forgotten; or, if 

 studying the bird with a glass, all effort is centred in 

 finding some characteristic by which it can be named, 

 and, succeeding in this, search is at once made for still 

 another species, whose name can in turn be added to a list. 

 Observing the habits, the courtship and nest-building, 

 and memorizing the song, is a third phase of bird-study — 

 the best of all three methods; but few indeed have ever 

 given a moment's thought to the bird itself. 



1 have lectured to an audience of teachers, every one 

 of whom was able to identify fifty birds or more, but not 

 one among them knew the significance of the scales on 



