i6o 



Bird- Lore 



The Young Observers' Contest 



The prize for the best essay on the birds of June and July goes to 

 Master Stewart Mackie Emery, of Morristown, N.J. 



In preparing their essays on the birds of August and September, in com- 

 petition for the prize offered in August Bird -Lore, we ask young observers 

 to remember that those contributions showing the greatest amount of 

 original observation will stand the best chance of winning the award. 

 What we desire is not general information on the bird -life of August and 

 September, but we want to know what you have seen in the woods, fields 

 or marshes during these two months. These essays should be sent in 

 during the first half of October. 



We now offer a fifth prize of a book or books to the value of two 

 dollars to the young observer of fourteen years or under who sends us the 

 best seven- or eight -hundred word article on the birds of October 

 and November. 



What Bird is This? 



Field 2>«fr//)(i«n. — Length 5.75 inches. Upper parts streaked with black, brownish gray and grayish brown 

 a grayish line over the eye. under parts white streaked with black, a buff hand across the breast and on the flanks. 



Note. — Each number of Bird-Lore will contain a photograph, from specimens in 

 the American Museum of Natural History, of some comparatively little-known bird, or 

 bird in obscure plumage, the name of which will be withheld until the succeeding 

 number of the magazine, it being believed that this method of arousing the student's 

 curiosity will result in impressing the bird's characters on his mind far more strongly 

 than if its name were given with the picture. 



The species figured in August is the female Indigo Bunting, which in worn, breeding 

 plumage shows almost no trace of blue and is then easily confused with certain Sparrows. 



