(juiti oiiiii wise. In New England ;it least, there always chances the clement of 

 tantalizing uncertainty that is the salt and spice of pursuit. 



Then, too, there are added the different phases born of the seven ages of 

 man. and the seventy times seven changes of mood and temperament. At first, 

 birds were simply two-legged, feathered things, that sang more or less well, and 

 would usually discover the ripe side of every strawberry and cherry at least half 

 an hour before the human picker appeared on the scene. .Spring and summer 

 brought birds, how they lived in the absent interval one didn't know, and any 

 sort of systematic aid in solving the feeding problem, other than shaking the 

 table-cloth out of the window, did not trouble one. Neither did the matter of 

 housing, to any practical extent. Bird houses were mostly impossible vaudeville 

 constructions, with many doors and little privacy within, and certain to be 

 draughty. 



Then came the "want to know ])eriod," when birds were things to be listed, 

 identified with deadly certainty upon insufficient evidence, and treated in the 

 precise manner of the multiplication table. These were days of wonderful dis- 

 coveries. \\hen the Chat seen at a new angle was recorded as a Prothonotary 

 Warbler, causing one's really scientific friend to smile indulgently and yawn, but 

 quite politely, behind his hand. 



Then a reasonable familiarity with the common birds settled over me, and 

 their personalities became the prime factor. (Not but what I shall always be 

 hazy about certain sparrows and fall-coated warblers when seen in the bush.) 



I no longer strove frantically to count every robin in a flock, or filled pages 

 in my note-book to prove that a flock of bluebirds seen on a certain February 11, 

 at 10 a. m.. was not the same as a flock of the identical birds seen the same after- 

 noon just before sunset. There is always a time when most students waste much 

 vital force in trj'ing to prove the unprovable and absolutely unimportant. 



In fact, it is not until the days of the spirit and ethical enjoyment supple- 

 ment the dusty days of drj'-as-dust note-book record that the real meaning of the 

 birds, the birds about home, the birds of the garden, and above all. the birds of 

 one's own garden, are revealed. When this once happens, the full chord is struck, 

 combined not only of their meaning to us, but also to the new relation in which 

 we stand to them. In this relationship lies the full reward that comes to those 

 of middle years to whom the bird has ceased to be a bit of anatomy, a step in the 

 ascending creative ladder, but is a personality, a voice that joins past to present so 

 imperceptibly that the transition to the future is an assured finality. 



Enough ! So comes February again, the discouraged and discouraging 

 long-short month of the year, and yet no two Februarj's are precisely alike. 

 Twelve only of these months of which I have record have been absolutely snow- 

 and ice-bound, while all the others have varied from largo to ca['ricioso and 

 aUesro con fuoco in their movements. But, there is mostly a but to times of trial. 

 If the birds are few^r than in December and J<inuary — which is the hightide of 

 resident, transient and wind-blown visiting bird-life — we have more than an hour 



412 



