88 Some Needed Work 



SOME NEEDED WORK. 

 Those who imagine that we are nearing the end of bird 

 study — that there is not much left worth spending time upon 

 — should search through all available bird books for such 

 common things as most phases of breeding habits, the prob- 

 lems of song, most questions relating to food and the manner 

 and times of feeding, the effect of light and w^ear and age upon 

 color of the feathers. In short, there is nothing j^et fully 

 known even in the field of the more evident matters relating 

 to the birds. In the less evident, having to do with mental 

 processes, physiological processes and the like almost nothing 

 has been done. An^-one should be able to throw light upon 

 the questions of nest building, deposition of the eggs, period 

 of incubation, young in the nest and out of it, and anything 

 else relating to the life as revealed in the nesting season. 

 There are doubtless more than a dozen species of birds nesting 

 within your reach every year, and yet it is not a hazardous 

 venture that you are ignorant about all of these suggested 

 questions. Ought you to be? vSuch work will prove intensely 

 interesting and of great value. It must certainly be within 

 the reach of all who live where trees grow. For such work 

 the birds need not be disturbed to the point of leaving the 

 nest in order to carry on the necessary observations. If the 

 nest is too high to be looked into without climbing too near it 

 and where a step-ladder cannot be used, a small mirror on the 

 end of a stick will often suffice. But if the study taxes your 

 ingenuity, so much the better! 



