Prelude 



with this dull, dead remainder, — the grace and 

 wild-wood spirit gone, arehct of tissue, skin, and 

 feathers. Verily, I would rather see a living 

 crow than a dead bird-of-paradise. Every orni- 

 thologist realizes how much more intelligent 

 pleasure there is in studying the habits and 

 song of the very commonest bird that comes 

 about the door, than in looking at the finest 

 assortment of pale-feathered, beady-eyed, cot- 

 ton-stuffed, and wire-mounted mummies that 

 the world has ever seen. 



^ 



The following pages are an informal diary of 

 a year's observations made, as business would 

 permit, in Central Park, of New York City, in 

 1893. The area of observation is not men- 

 tioned as giving any additional interest to the 

 narrative, only as the localizing of such impres- 

 sions naturally imparts to them more definite- 

 ness and reality. It is the foil of substantial 

 background to set off the prominent objects in 

 the picture. 



While the Park is scarcely half a mile in 

 width, and about two and one-half miles long, 

 the observations here recorded, with slight ex- 



