How to Name the Birds 



STUDIES OF THE FAMILIES OF PASSERES 



BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN 

 FIRST PAPER 



DURING the past year BiRD-LoRE has published a series of articles 

 on "Birds and Seasons"* which, with "Suggestions for the Season's 

 Study" and "Suggestions for the Season's Reading," were designed to 

 tell the student what birds he might expect to find during each month 

 in the year and to call his attention, in due time, to the more charac- 

 teristic phases of bird -life as they were developed. It is now proposed 

 to supplement these articles with a series of papers on identification. 



It may well be questioned whether, in view of the numerous text- 

 books which have been especially prepared to assist beginners in naming 

 birds, anything can be written which will further simplify the problem of 

 identification, but the receipt, almost daily, of descriptions of birds which 

 the observer is unable to find in any manual encourages a further attempt 

 to lighten the labors of the student of 'birds through an opera-glass.' 



The Importance of a Comprehensive Grasp of the Subject. — If the student 

 can only be induced to survey the ornithological field, at least superficially, 

 before entering it he will find his way wonderfully simplified. The path 

 to a knowledge of birds is by no means so tortuous as those who tread 

 it in the dark believe. Our birds are not unlimited in number — they 

 are all included in our text-books; no new species, in the United States 

 at least, remain to be discovered, and if instead of attempting to identify 

 a bird by aimlessly turning the pages of a book with a hope that some- 

 thing like your rather vague mental image may be seen in the illustrations, 

 the student will devote a few hours to memorizing the characters on which 

 the families of birds are based, he will find the knowledge gained of service 

 to him every time he essays to name a bird. 



The Families of Land -birds. — Omitting, for the present, all reference 

 to water-birds, few of which come within the range of the average bird 

 student's glasses, we have left in North America, east of the Mississippi, 

 the following eight orders and thirty- two families of birds: 



Order I. Chicken-like Birds. GALLIN^E 

 Family i. Grouse, Partridges, etc. Tetraonidte. 9 species. 

 Family 2. Turkeys, etc. Phasianid<e. i species. 



*" Bird-life near Boston," by Ralph Hoffmann; "Bird-life near New York City," by Frank M. Chapman; "Bird- 

 life near Philadelphia," by Witmer Stone; "Bird-life near Oberlin, Ohio," by Lynds Jones; "Bird-life near 

 Chicago," by Benjamin T. Gault; "Bird-life in California," by C. .A. Keeler and Lyman Bclding. 



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