30 A LESSON IN BIRD STUDY. 



a great deal about natural liistoiy, including the 

 birds ; but we studied them merel}" in a mechanical 

 way, and never once thought of walking out to the 

 fields and woods to make a practical use of the 

 book-knowledge we had gained. The consequence 

 was that in a short while Ave had foi'gotten almost 

 everything we had learned. 



While I urge upon the student to be much out 

 of doors, I still feel that it is well for him to 

 become as familiar as possible with his manual, 

 studying the descriptions of all the species within 

 the radius of his observations, even though he may 

 not as yet have seen mau}^ of them. When he 

 does meet them his previous study will be useful 

 and save trouble. Some months ago I saw my first 

 red-breasted nuthatch — a bird that is only a mi- 

 grant and a rare one in my locality. The moment 

 my eye fell upon it I recognized it, because I had 

 so often read the description of this species in my 

 hand-book that its size, color, habits, etc., were 

 firmly fixed in my mind. In the same way I at 

 once identified the fox-sparrow, the tree-sparrow, 

 the tufted titmouse, the purple finch, the yellow- 

 rumped warbler, and many others. 



How grateful I should have been a number of 

 years ago for a sample lesson on bird identification ! 



