FOREWORD 



*'Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, 



From his Republic banished without pity 



The Poets; in this town of yours, 



You put to death, by means of a Committee, 



The ballad-singers and the Troubadours, 

 The street musicians of the heavenly city. 



The birds, who make sweet music for us all 



In our dark hours, as David did for Saul. 



*'Think of your woods and orchards without birds! 



Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams 

 As in an idiot's brain remembered words 



Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams I 

 Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds 



Make up for the lost music, when your teams 

 Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more 

 The feathered gleaners follow to your door? 



"You call them thieves and pillagers; but know 

 They are the winged wardens of your farms, 



Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, 

 And from your harvests keep a hundred harms." 



During this past century, the period of scientific investi- 

 gation, birds have received a large share of attention. 

 The immortal pioneers in American Ornithology, Audu- 

 bon, Wilson, and Nuttall have been followed by a host of 

 scientists w^ho have done work of distinction along various 

 lines. They have described the birds of both fertile and 

 arid regions, as well as far distant lands, such as Alaska 

 and the tundra of the North. They have made complete 

 and valuable collections, the most noted of which are in 

 the National Museum of Washington and the American 

 Museum of Natural History in New York. The latter 



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