BIRDS 



IX THEIR 



RELATIONS TO MAN 



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Introduction. 



THE RELATIONS OF BIRDS TO MAN. 



The town of Durham, New Hampshire, in which this book 

 has been written, may serve to illustrate in miniature the 

 relations that exist between the world of birds and the world 

 of man. This town abounds with homesteads distributed over 

 its more habitable portions, with considerable areas of wood- 

 land and rocky pastures, while on the east it adjoins that 

 arm of the sea called Great Bay. Running into this bay is 

 the Oyster River : below the dam whicli holds back the fresh 

 water this is a tide-stream, overflowing salt marshes through 

 part of its course. As a result of this unusual situation, 

 Durham has an extraordinarily rich fauna and flora, making 

 the region one to deliglit the heart of the naturalist. 



During the summer season birds are abundant in this town. 

 In the yards about the houses the chipping-sparrows are 

 cherished dwellers, building their horse-hair nests under the 

 very windows, and supervising the lawns and roadways for 

 grasshoppers, caterpillars, and many other insects found 

 among the grasses and low herbage. The robins are also 

 abundant, running over the lawns in search of earthworms, 

 cutworms, and grasshoppers, often building their nests in the 

 trees in the yard, though more conunonly rejjairing to the 



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