FOR TEACHERS AND PUPILS 



Exercise III. Summer Neighbors 



Correlated Studies : Geography, Arithmetic and Drawing 



In the preceding exercise, a brief description was given of the great number 

 of spring travelers which may be regularly found at this season of the year, 

 all about us. To describe, even very concisely, the destinations and summer 

 activities of each of these travelers would fill many pages. Among birds alone, 

 there are hundreds of migrating species. In order to gain any clear idea of 

 their movements, it will be necessary to select only a few of the commonest, 

 and follow them to their summer homes. 



This may seem an easy thing to do, but it is really a difficult task to 

 determine just which species are the commonest throughout the length and 

 breadth of our great continent. The birds which are best known in the East 

 may be rare, or entirely absent, in the West, while those which nest in the 

 same regions of the North, may travel various routes thither from the South. 



In the table, given below, thirty species have been selected, representing 

 nearly all orders of North American birds, and the majority of families into 

 which the largest order is subdivided. Some of these birds may be quite unfa- 

 miliar to many, but by learning a few facts about each, in a systematic way, 

 it will soon become easy to remember a great deal about a large munber of 

 birds that are nearly related to each other, in the various orders and families 

 noted. 



The systematic study of any group of related objects, living or dead, is 

 known as classification. Although it is sometimes considered hard and unin- 

 teresting, it is after all the only convenient and sure way to learn about the 

 vast numbers of birds and other forms that make up nature. Let us think 

 of classification as a large case, which shows, when the door is opened, a number 

 of graduated pigeon-holes one within another, like an eastern juggler's set of 

 boxes. 



We may begin with the largest pigeon-hole, marked class, and put into it 

 all the birds in the world, but upon comparing different birds, it will be found 

 that some are more nearly alike than others. In North America, we can pick 

 out seventeen such groups, which are called orders, when thus divided. The 

 pigeon-hole marked class, therefore, must be large enough to contain not only 

 seventeen smaller pigeon-holes, but also several others for orders of birds 

 found elsewhere in the world. Sorting out our birds into their respective orders, 

 we may next go through each order separately, and again find smaller groups, 

 still more closely related, which are known as families. Re-sorting once more, 

 we may go on, subdividing each family into genera, the singular of which is 

 genus. Just as we might expect, the pigeon-holes for genera are smaller in 

 size and frequently more numerous than those for families and orders. 



(177) 



