INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



When Mr. Wright did me the honor to 

 propose that my name should be associated 

 with his book, my thoughts naturally re- 

 verted to the days, now long past, when 

 I too lived in Boston and, as the newest 

 of beginners in bird study, — not half so 

 fashionable an amusement then as it has 

 since happily become, — perambulated the 

 Common and the Public Garden morning 

 after morning in quest of knowledge. How 

 pleasant those mornings were! And what 

 wonders upon wonders I discovered ! I was 

 young then, though I had already lived 

 nearly half the years allotted to man in that 

 unfortunate old Hebrew verse the incessant 

 iteration of which has made so many good 

 people old before their time. And a happy 

 thing it is to be young — young and igno- 

 rant. For when a man is young the world 

 also is young ; and when a man, ignorant as 

 I was in those bright days, begins to be or- 



