TO THE READER. 



of marsh-grass. We Americans have not yet thoroughly- 

 acquired the habit of regarding the museums as great 

 picture books, and yet such they are, and in this connection 

 I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. J. A. Allen, Curator 

 of the Department of Birds and Mammals of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, for much valuable assistance 

 and advice in connection with this book. 



If you are not a dweller in a large city, but live in a 

 suburban town with a few shrubs in your yard or a vine 

 over your door, you have the wherewithal to entertain bird 

 guests who will talk to you so cheerily that you will soon 

 be led to discover that there is a lane or a bit of woods 

 within walking distance, where you may hear more of such 

 delightful conversation. Read the " Bird Songs about Wor- 

 cester," ^ by the late Harry Leverett Nelson, a graphic as 

 well as charming account of the birds to be found in the 

 neighbourhood of a rural city, and you will be encouraged. 



And you who through circumstance, rather than choice 

 perhaps, live in the real country and, as yet, feel the isola- 

 tion more than the companionableness of Nature, who love 

 the flowers in a way, but find them irresponsive, I beg of 

 you to join this quest. You will discover that you have 

 neighbours enough, friends for all your moods, silent, melo- 

 dious, or voluble; friends who will gossip with you, and 

 yet bear no idle tales. 



If you wish to go on this pleasant quest, you must take 

 with you three things, — a keen eye, a quick ear, and loving 

 patience. The vision may be supplemented by a good field- 

 glass, and the ear quickened by training, but there is no 

 substitute for intelligent patience. A mere dogged persist- 

 ency will not do for the study of the living bird, and it is 

 to the living bird in his love-songs, his house-building, his 

 haunts, and his migrations, that I would lead you. The 

 gun that silences the bird voice, and the looting of nests, 

 should be left to the practised hand of science ; you have 

 no excuse for taking life, whether actual or embryonic, as 



1 Boston : Little, Brown & Co. 

 XV 



