16 Bird -Lore 



it is true that the child's interest is the primary and essential thing to awaken 

 him and open the door to a great storehouse of pleasure and resource, this 

 interest can well be utilized by the teacher to inculcate the most fundamental 

 of all teachings, accuracy of observation. It is not sufficient that the child's 

 eyes be opened; it is necessary that they be trained to see. The man who sees 

 accurately understands what he sees, and makes a success of life instead of a 

 failure. A judicious use of a bird-calendar, with emphasis laid upon the accuracy 

 of the records, will not only arouse interest in bird-study and maintain it, but 

 also will give to the children a most vital training. It is a matter of common 

 knowledge that the active imagination of a child will lead him to see almost 

 anything that he is expected to see or wishes to see without any intentional 

 dishonesty on his part. As a result, he often reports impossible observations 

 of birds out of season or birds not found in the locality, and, unless the teacher 

 is circumspect, these observations are given equal value on the bird-calendar 

 with more commonplace but correct observations. It should not be necessary 

 for a teacher to know all of the birds himself or the proper time of arrival of 

 all of them before starting a bird-calendar in his school. What is important is 

 that he should cultivate an attitude of accuracy himself and impress the chil- 

 dren with the need of it. Many a fine bird-calendar has fallen short of its full 

 usefulness because the teacher has not dared to question the children's obser- 

 vations and has allowed inaccurate reports, intentional and unintentional, 

 to appear upon it. 



There are available, for most localities, local lists of the birds known to be 

 found in that part of the country. Many of these local lists give the average date 

 of arrival of each bird. If a teacher can refer to such a list he can quickly tell 

 whether a child's record is improbable and question him accordingly. The train- 

 ing which a child receives in this way may do more good than the calendar 

 itself, for not only will it impress him with the value of careful observation, 

 but it will also impress him with one of the greatest marvels of migration, 

 the accuracy of the spring arrival of each species of bird year after year. 



DIRECTIONS FOR KEEPING A BIRD-CALENDAR 



For the use of individuals wishing to keep a full record of their observations 

 throughout the season and from year to year, the method employed by Dr. 

 Chapman and described on page 10 of his 'Handbook of Birds of Eastern 

 North America' cannot be improved upon. At Cornell, in addition to keeping 

 individual records of this kind, we maintain a 'Bird-Chart,' which is essentially 

 the same as a roll-book spread out, upon which the observations of all who 

 cooperate are recorded. It is made of profile paper and covers a wall-board 

 about 9 feet long and 4 feet wide. At the left are three vertical columns for the 

 names of the birds, the names of the discoverers, and the localities where they 

 were first seen. The remainder of the chart is divided into squares so that there 



