Teaching Ornithology 17 



are able to leave it. Some attention is also given to the study of 

 pterylosis and its bearing upon classification. While the field work 

 is largely individual and independent of the teacher, the students are 

 given just enough personal supervision to minimize mistakes in 

 identification and observation. 



The course offered in the summer school is arranged for 22 

 hours' work each week for the term of eight weeks, a large part of 

 that time being spent in the field with the birds, the sole object of 

 the field work being to acquaint the student with the more common 

 local species by a system of comparisons of the different species. 

 Hence, all field work must be done under the personal supervision 

 of the teacher until each student has acquired a speaking acquaint- 

 ance with at least thirty species, which requires rather more than 

 two-thirds of the term for the majority of the class. At the close of 

 this period the average student will be fairly familiar with fifty 

 species, and the most apt with seventy, with twenty others on his 

 list seen once or oftener. 



Field work, without a rigid system of note keeping, would re- 

 sult in careless work and loss of time with a class of students. It is 

 undoubtedly drudgery to most, if not all, but it cannot be avoided. 

 There is a golden mean between packing the note-book and trying 

 to pack the memory, but one could not expect the beginner to find 

 it. During the first week of the summer study the note-book will 

 grow rapidly with descriptions of pattern of colors, song, flight, 

 habits, food, comparisons with other similar species, and anything 

 else which will help in retaining the distinguishing features of the 

 species, 7vriiten on the spot, in a scratch book. At the close of the 

 day these are copied into a permanent journal of the day, and 

 the names of all the species seen are entered into a daily "check 

 book' — a quadrille-ruled note-book dated at the top, with a line for 

 weather, one for start and return, one for locality where the work 

 was done. In the squares, on a level with the name of each species, 

 and under the date, abbreviations are entered indicating where the 

 species was seen (town, field, woods, pasture, roadside, pond or 

 stream, etc.), about how many seen, whether singing or silent, 

 whether molting or not. For a time the local geographical distribu- 

 tion of each species is given special attention, so that time may not 

 be wasted in looking in impossible places for certain species. 



During the last two weeks of the term of study, the students are 

 expected to pursue their field work largely independent of the 

 teacher for the purpose of developing an individual method of study. 

 It is unfortunate that this part of the work must come at a time 

 when molting is well under way, so that perplexing patterns of dress. 



