290 Bird - Lore 



Suppose your Society covers a locality which is becoming overrun with 

 Starlings. It is of great importance for everyone to know about the habits 

 and distribution of this species, in order to gather reliable data upon which 

 to base laws regarding this intruder from the Old World. 



Or, suppose you are confronted with the gypsy and browntail moth pest, 

 or the chestnut-disease fungus, your duty is plainly to investigate conditions 

 and to inform people of the community how to control these menaces to veg- 

 etation. The adaptability of birds is a matter for careful study with regard 

 to such pests, and in this connection, the feeding-habits of tree-loving species 

 might well be studied with minute care. 



Other problems which belong to local societies as well as to state or federal 

 commissions, to solve, are changes in bird-population, decade by decade, or 

 year by year, correlated with changes in habitat and distribution; oppor- 

 tunities and need of bird-protection ; propagation of wild birds under domestica- 

 tion; nature-study in the schools and home, and a systematic survey of the 

 arrival and departure of migratory species. 



Each of these topics may be subdivided in different ways, and other topics 

 may be added to those given above, but any one of them, if thoroughly taken 

 up, would furnish work for many observers. Perhaps the criticism might be 

 fairly made that the schedules of work undertaken by most Audubon Socie- 

 ties are too fragmentary or, in frequent instances, too desultory. Why not 

 commence this year and take one objective point of attack, a single problem, 

 and devote more time and thought to that? 



The following communications from quite different sources show the value 

 of doing one thing well. The first gives the result of observations during mid- 

 summer in a limited area by a class sufficiently large to be compared with the 

 average local Audubon Society, or Bird Club. The second deals with the 

 problem of providing a suitable food-supply for birds which ordinarily migrate 

 farther south. 



BIRD-STUDY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA 

 SUMMER SCHOOL 



During the sessions of the University of Virginia Summer School, for several years 

 a group of teachers numbering from fifty to seventy-five has given a good deal of time 

 to careful and accurate bird-study. This work has been entirely voluntary, for the 

 University does not allow credit for bird-study in the nature-study course. 



These early morning walks at five or at five-thirty o'clock, while testing the 

 earnestness of the bird-lover, did not interrupt the regular work of the school, 

 beginning at 8:30 a.m., but encouraged the formation of friendships, and the 

 exchange of information regarding birds, between teachers from all sections of the 

 United States. 



Real bird-study at the University of Virginia Summer School was started by Dr. 

 K. C. Davis, of the Peabody College for Teachers (Nashville), who conducted it most 

 successfully from igio to 1912. Other work kept Doctor Davis in New Jersey for the 



