INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS. 



" I am poorly situated ; there are no birds in my vicinity 

 except Eobins and Wrens," you say. Nonsense ! it is impos- 

 sible. You make me feel as Dean Hole, the genial ecclesias- 

 tical rose-grower did when certain lazy amateur gardeners, 

 after admiring his rose garden, said that they could not 

 grow roses because their soil was unsuitable, exclaiming, 

 " Oh, what a garden yours is for roses ! Old Mr. Drone, our 

 gardener, tells us he never saw such soil as yours nor so bad 

 a soil as ours for roses." And the Dean dryly exclaimed, 

 " Herein lies a fact in horticulture, — Mr. Drone always has 

 a bad soil." 



Get the best possible results from your limited area, and 

 if it is anything better than a back yard, you need not be 

 discouraged. The difficulty with us Americans is that we 

 are accustomed to a limitless extent of country, and scram- 

 ble carelessly over it, in our amateur scientific investiga- 

 tions, as well as in other ways, instead of thoroughly 

 studying liome first. If the English naturalists ranged as 

 wildly as we do, they would exhaust the island, and fall off 

 the edge in a month. White, of Selborne, has left us a 

 book that is classic, from his knowledge of one county, and 

 our Thoreau has given us the perfect literature of wood- 

 craft from his intimate knowledge of a comparatively small 

 area. 



The first nest that you will probably find, and one that 

 will confront you at every turn, will be the Robin's. Com- 

 mon, rough in structure, and anything but pretty, it is a 

 type nevertheless ; being partly made of sticks and lined 

 with clay, it is a combination of carpentry and masonry. 

 The Wood Thrush also uses mud in a similar manner, but 

 builds more neatly. Sparrows you will find lodged every- 

 where, — in the hedge, under bushes, by thick grass tufts, 

 — their individual nests being so much alike that it is diffi- 

 cult to distinguish them apart. Dried grass and fine roots 

 are the chief materials used by them, with the exception of 

 the little Chipping Sparrow, who combines horsehair and 

 pine-needles with the grasses, which, together with its 

 delicacy and small size, identify the nest. 



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