Our Common Birds and How to Know Them 
The suburban dweller, who is able to continue his observations through every 
month of the year, will have the privilege of watching the coming and going of the 
birds in their migrations, and, knowing the periods of these, will be enabled to inspect 
each species as it arrives, forewarned, so to speak, of the name of the particular bird 
he may expect to see. The great advantage that an observer so circumstanced will 
possess over him whose country life is limited to a few months of the Summer, when the 
birds are present in bewildering confusion, is obvious. The celebrated scientist, John 
Tyndall, when illustrating in a lecture on Sound the value of previous information concern- 
ing what was to be expected from an experiment, relates an incident in his acquaintance 
with Faraday. He says: ‘‘] had everything arranged, when, just before I excited the 
magnet, he laid his hand upon my arm and asked, ‘What am I to look for?’’’ ~And:then 
he adds that even ‘‘ that prince of experimenters felt the advantage of having his attention 
directed to the special point in question.” Just so it is with the student of birds. When 
told that the Song Sparrow arrives early in March ; that it is streaked above with red and 
brown ; that it has a chestnut crown ; and that its song is ‘‘ one high note thrice repeated 
and then a canary-like cadenza ;" and when early in March he hears such a song, and, 
33 
