INTRODUCTION. 



In these days we have not the excuse that it is nec- 

 essary to shoot a bird to find out what it is. With 

 museum collections and bird books to refer to, one has 

 only to go to the field and watch the birds. Here 

 an opera-glass is a great help and a note-book posi- 

 tively indispensable to the earnest observer. Notes 

 on colors and markings made in the field with the 

 bird in sight, if compared with the books, will give the 

 bird's name, and notes on his habits made at the ,time 

 will add valuable material to our meagre knowledge 

 of life histories; but notes made from memory will 

 rarely identify and are wholly untrustworthy. A good 

 observer must be able tO' take his oath upon the accu- 

 racy of all his records. 



Provided with glass and note-book and dressed in 

 inconspicuous colors, proceed to some good birdy 

 place — the bushy banks of a stream or an old juniper 

 pasture — and sit down in the undergrowth or against 

 a concealing tree trunk with your back to the sun, to 

 look and listen in silence. You will be able tO' trace 

 most songs to their singers by finding which tree 

 the song comes from and then watching for movement, 

 as birds are rarely motionless long at a time when 

 singing. It will be a help if, besides writing down a 

 careful description of both bird and song, you draw a 

 rough diagram of the bird's markings and put down 



