258 Bird -Lore 



We must definitely plan to increase the outdoor activities and interests of 

 American people. Here lies for many the road to more bodily and mental 

 health and happiness. 



"A third argument for the introduction of bird-study will be appreciated 

 by teachers. To many teachers the bugbear of school-work, the thing that 

 wears until it either kills or hardens, is discipline. The one disagreeable feature 

 of many an otherwise pleasant position is police duty. And discipline often 

 wears on pupils. Whatever, therefore, conduces to pleasant relations between 

 governor and governed and works to improve the conduct of the school should 

 make a strong appeal to teachers from a purely selfish standpoint if from no 

 other." 



'Typical Instances of Successful Bird Study,' and a detailed 'Plan of Action' 

 conclude this suggestive and practical little manual. — F. M. C. 



FOR AND FROM ADULT AND YOUNG 

 OBSERVERS 



STUDYING BIRDS IN MAINE AND NOVA SCOTIA 



By NORMAN LEWIS, (Age 14 Years), Hampden, Me. 



In the summer of 1913, at the age of nine, I was visiting at my mother's 

 old home in Halifax. While there I was taken to see the Halifax Museum 

 several times. I was so impressed by it that I decided to start a museum of 

 my own. My aunts were cleaning up the house and in the attic they found 

 ten 'Bogota skins' of birds from Colombia, South America. My grandfather 

 had given an old sea-captain a pair of elk antlers for them. There was also an 

 Amazon Parrot which he had obtained alive from a sailor whose ship lay in 

 the harbor. After it died he had it well mounted. A Barred Owl and some 

 birds' eggs completed the outfit which they gave to me. 



I was crazy over my 'museum,' as I called it, and when I got back to 

 Hampden, Maine, the lady next door gave me a mounted Wilson's Snipe, 

 picked up near Boston. 



The only egg that survived the journey was that of a Bob-White, but a 

 friend in Hampden gave me several sets, and I found some left-overs in deserted 

 nests. I never robbed a bird's nest. 



The next spring — 1914 — I started studying birds outdoors. There was no 

 one to help me, so I had to go it alone and without any books for reference. 



In early September I was given for a birthday present a copy of Reed's 

 'Land Birds.' I received it joyfully and began to study birds in dead earnest. 

 That was my only equipment but it settled most of my problems. By the end 

 of the year I had identified fifty species of wild birds in the field. 



I did not take the book to the woods with me, for I knew every picture in 



