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Bird - Lore 



2Mrb=1Lore 



A Bi-Monthly Magazine 

 Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds 



OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETIES 



Edited by FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Contributing Editor, MABEL OSGOOD WRIGHT 



Published by D. APPLETON & CO. 



Vol. XXII Published April 1. 1920 No. 1 



SUBSCRIPTION RATES 

 Price in the United States, one dollar and fiftv cents a year; 

 outside the United States, one dollar and seventy-five cents, 

 postage paid. 



COPYRIGHTED, 1920, BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 



Bird-Lore's Motto: 

 A Bird in t be Busb Is Worth Two in the Hand 



Recent experiences have impressed 

 us anew with the vagueness with which 

 most people see birds. This is due to hasty, 

 inadequate, and careless observation, to 

 ignorance of what may be called the 

 topography of a bird, to a lack of training 

 in the art of seeing things accurately and 

 in detail, and to the difficulty with which 

 most birds may be studied at short range. 



It is, of course, the last reason which 

 has prevented birds from becoming more 

 widely known. But it is the very elusive- 

 ness of birds which makes bird-study so 

 fascinating. They appeal not only to 

 our desire to know, but to our inherent 

 love of the chase. Surely no bird student 

 who has experienced the thrill of follow- 

 ing strange calls and songs would ever 

 want to pursue his study in an aviary! 



With some exceptions, therefore, we 

 may accept the shyness of birds as a 

 lasting characteristic and we may accept 

 it also as a characteristic which demands 

 care and patience on the part of the field- 

 student if he hopes for success. In this 

 fact, indeed, we have no small part of the 

 educational value of bird-study, even when 

 bird-study means merely naming birds 

 out of doors. 



This study should, when possible, be 

 preceded by a sufficiently detailed examina- 

 tion of the bird to enable one to become 

 familiar with the meaning of the terms 

 which are used in descriptive ornithology. 

 'Wing- bars,' 'primaries,' 'secondaries,' 

 'coverts,' 'back,' 'rump,' 'breast,' 'crown,' 



'flanks' 'shoulder,' 'bend of the wing,' etc., 

 should all become definite terms convey- 

 ing an exact meaning. Failing access to 

 specimens, to Pigeons, or even Chickens 

 in the flesh, examine carefully the dia- 

 grams of birds which are given in most 

 bird books. How can one hope to describe 

 a bird with any degree of exactness if one 

 is neither familiar with the proper descrip- 

 tive terms nor knows how to apply them? 

 Simply because we know that a bird has a 

 head, body, wings, tail, and feet, it does 

 not follow that we are prepared to describe 

 accurately its color-pattern any more than 

 we could accurately describe an airplane 

 because we know that it has planes, an 

 engine and fusilage. 



Definite knowledge of the plan of a bird 

 is a great aid to correct observation in 

 nature. With such knowledge we shall be 

 far less likely to describe the male Red- 

 winged Blackbird as 'red-breasted,' to 

 say that a Flicker has a white back, or a 

 Myrtle Warbler a yellow breast, while the 

 blue birds with red heads, green wings and 

 pink tails would become nearly, if not 

 quite, extinct ! 



But beyond all this is needed that care 

 and patience in looking at a bird which 

 permits one to write a fairly detailed 

 description of it, or, far better, draw and 

 color an outline of it. This, it is true, 

 cannot always be done, but, as we have 

 said, therein lies half the charm of the 

 study of birds in nature. Certainly no 

 one would care to pluck birds as he would 

 blossoms ! 



After the above was written it was dis- 

 covered that Dr. Allen, in the immediately 

 succeeding pages, had also taken for his 

 text the subject of accuracy of observation 

 in the study of birds. Prompted by his 

 experience as a teacher, he dwells not only 

 on the importance of accurate observing 

 in naming birds in nature, but also upon its 

 value in training one to see other things 

 as well as birds. "It is not sufficient,'' 

 he writes, "that the child's eyes be opened; 

 it is necessar\ that they be trained to see," 

 and if. through an interest in birds, this 

 end can be achieved, then, indeed, is 

 the pupil doubly fortunate. 



