FIRST MEETINGS. 



To every person there come moments of su- 

 preme delight, when some cherished hope has been 

 reahzed, but to few do these epochs come oftener 

 than to the enthusiastic student of bird life. Let 

 him provide himself with a good opera-glass, hie 

 to the woodlands, the fields, the hedges, and espe- 

 cially to the banks of a stream or the shores of a 

 lake, and give himself up to the luxury of form- 

 ing new acquaintances. Sliould he be a neophyte 

 in bird-lore and choose a day in the early spring- 

 time for his excursion, he may find more new spe- 

 cies than he can well introduce himself to ; he may 

 become sadly perplexed, and even disgusted with 

 himself, if not with the birds. It will not require 

 a long time to discover how little he knows. Such 

 a discovery, however, may not be without value as 

 a moral discipline. 



I have often felt amused at my own ignorance 

 — T prefer to call it simplicity — when I began to 

 study the birds in earnest. I did not know even 



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