The Birds' Calendar 



discoverer ; and the same exhilaration of dis- 

 covery is in store for each new beginner. It is 

 entertaining to read others' accounts of bird- 

 life, but this is a mild satisfaction compared 

 with seeing for one's self what is transpiring in 

 the woods and fields all about. However in- 

 structive the experience of^ others, one realizes 

 only his own experience. It is the difference 

 between shadow aud substance. Language is a 

 clumsy medium for conveying beauty of form 

 and color, grace of motion, tone and modula- 

 tion of song. 



When one considers the various classes of 

 birds — song-birds, birds of prey, game-birds, 

 shore and swimming birds — and the diversi- 

 ty of habits incident to their several modes of 

 life, he realizes the endless field of investigation 

 open to the student. Every region of the globe 

 attracts an avifauna congenial to its physical 

 and chmatic conditions. Mountain and plain, 

 forest and field, seashore and stream, from the 

 tropics to the Arctic zone — all have their spe- 

 cial types, each with its own functions, and all 

 for the service and adornment of nature. And 

 when we take a still broader outlook, and sur- 

 vey the myriad varieties of organic forms 

 throughout the world, from the depths of ocean 

 308 



