A FIRST GLANCE AT THE BIRDS 



tiful songsters to be exterminated. It is well for people to 

 learn to appreciate what they have before desiring to add to 

 their possessions. Does the robin sing in the elms of New 

 England? In the pines and redwoods of California he sings 

 the same dear old song. Does the meadow-lark make glad 

 the plowed fields of Illinois with his whistle? Here he sings 

 a fuller and richer tune. To be sure we do not know the 

 ecstatic song of the bobolink, but the linnet sings here a strain 

 that is quite as vivacious and with a sweeter melody. Bul- 

 lock's oriole sounds his ringing notes as bravely with us as the 

 more famed but no more lovely Baltimore oriole does about 

 New York, and so on throughout the list. 



To know the birds we must see them in their native haunts 

 — on the ocean, about the shores, in the sage-brush and the 

 pine woods. The sea birds include the lowest types. They 

 are the least lovable, least human of our birds, but to the natu- 

 ralist of peculiar interest on account of their low organization. 

 Ihey are unemotional, comparatively unintelligent, and not 

 infrequently grotesque in form, but they are wonderfully 

 adapted to the life they lead. While crossing the ferry some 

 quiet day in winter you may notice, swimming about near the 

 shore, a bird which appears to possess little besides a long, 

 slender, erect neck, a small head, and a long, sharp, spear-like 

 beak. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, the bird van- 

 ishes beneath the tide. You may watch the spot in vain for 

 its reappearance, for away ofF in another direction it is calmly 

 swimming. It is the western grebe, one of the lowest of our 

 sea birds, which, with two smaller cousins, spends the winter 

 along our shores, and, with the possible exception of the pen- 

 guins of the Antarctic, is one of the most accomplished divers 



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