DIFFICULTIES OF BIRD STUDY. 37 



ness, industry, persistence ; and hence the poet 

 could say of him : 



" What others did at distance hear, 

 And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 

 Was shown to tliis philosopher, 

 And at his bidding seemed to come." 



First attempts at using a "manual" or "key" 

 are always attended with difficulty, for there seems 

 to be no end to the families, genera, species, and 

 even sub-species ; and frequently the descriptions 

 are so nearly alike that one becomes sadly con- 

 fused, even with the bird in plain sight before 

 one. There, for example, are the hermit tlirush, 

 the wood thrush, the olive-backed thrush, the gray- 

 cheeked thrush, and the veery thrush. What a 

 time 1 have had trying to fix their places in the 

 bird category ! After reading one description, I 

 would exclaim, " That's the bird, no doubt about 

 it ! " But to make certainty doubly sure, I would 

 read the next description, and then find that I was 

 less confident, until, by the time 1 had read four 

 or five descriptions, my mind would be in a perfect 

 jumble. And then there are the warblers, a numer- 

 ous fraternity of small, insect-eating birds, many 

 of them only migi'ants in the Middle States. How 



