The Audubon Societies 225 



REFERENCES 



Chapman and Reed: Color-Key to North American Birds, see introduction. 

 Beebe: The Bird, Chapter XIV. 



Eckstorm: The Bird Book, Chapters on Comparing Feet, The Foot of a Swimming 

 Bird, How a Hawk Eats his Food, The Life History of the American Flamingo. 



DRAWING AND SPELLING EXERCISE 



Draw the foot of a swimming bird, a wading bird, a scratching bird, a climbing 

 bird, and a perching bird, also, of a bird of prey, a Kingfisher and Swift. Learn to spell 

 the following words: 



FOR AND FROM YOUNG OBSERVERS 



A METHOD OF TABULATING NOTES 



ARTHUR JACOT. Ithaca, N. Y. 



As one studies the birds of the various states, one is struck by the difference 

 in avifauna, not only in summer but in winter, when it is easier to study our 

 bird neighbors. This change is especially noticeable according to locality, and 

 here we must abandon artificial boundaries and use geographical divisions or, 

 for more concentrative work, habitats; for one will find a different fauna 

 along a river than where streams are small and many, along a ravine 

 or gorge than on a marsh, in a pasture than in a wood, in a piece of 

 large open wood than in a piece of sprout wood with undergrowth. This 

 difference is just as striking in winter as in summer, and easier to observe. 

 There is, moreover, an interesting correlation between bird and environment. 

 This concentrative studying of a limited area is a work fit for the young lay 

 bird-student. Each student should take an area four or five miles each side 

 of his home or base, divide it into its geographical regions (as river-valley, 

 ravine or gorge, stream-flat, mountainside, seashore, etc.), and then divide 

 these into habitats (as marsh, wood, field, undergrowth, etc.), and proceed to 

 study each for its characteristic birds and their peculiarities. Anyone having 

 mastered such an area would be considered a "local authority." 



To illustrate my meaning, let me use an area of Connecticut with which I 

 am famihar. The locality is some twelve miles north of Bridgeport, in the town 

 of Monroe. I will leave out the country immediately bordering on the Housa- 

 tonic River, to simplify matters, as it brings in another fauna, — the inland 

 waterway fauna. 



