10 INTRODUCTION. 
close, and a bird away back in Jurassic time was little 
more than a feathered reptile. 
Birds are everywhere. There is no country too 
cold nor any territory too hot for some of them; and 
in those areas where the extremes of climate occur, 
it is not the apparently most rugged species only 
that are found: there are as many small and delicate 
forms as those of more sturdy build. Birds are 
everywhere, in a more restricted sense. They are 
not given to dwelling in remote spots, far from their 
arch-enemy, man, but come boldly into our towns, 
nest in our door-yards, and, as an extreme case, 
sparrows have been known to build in a locomotive 
round-house, where they were hidden half the time 
by steam, and compelled to excessive screeching to 
make themselves heard. Not all birds are as tame 
as this, of course, but it is safe to assert that the very 
wildest of them all would be less wary if man would 
treat them with more consideration. This has been 
so often demonstrated that no additional evidence 
need be adduced. 
Man’s thoughtlessness and greed have gone so far 
as to render extinct some of our North American 
birds during the present century, and others are 
threatened. This is often commented upon, and sug- 
gestions made to stop the work of destruction before 
it is too late; but nothing comes of it. Every book 
or essay upon birds in general, therefore, is a matter 
of ancient history to some extent. It is little more 
than half a century since Wilson, Audubon, and 
Nuttall wrote of the birds of this country; and now 
some of the species common then are gone entirely 
