Preface vii 



bing of nests more than he ; few men, not spec- 

 ciaHsts, know so much about bird Hfe. 



Nature, the best teacher of us all, trains the 

 child's eyes through study of the birds to 

 quickness and precision, which are the first 

 requisites for all intelligent observation in every 

 field of knowledge. I know boys who can 

 name a flock of ducks when they are mere specks 

 twinkling in their rapid rush across the autumn 

 sky; and girls who instantly recognise a gold- 

 finch by its waving flight above the garden. 

 The white band across the end of the kingbird's 

 tail leads to his identification the minute some 

 sharp young eyes perceive it. At a consider- 

 able distance, a little girl I know distinguished 

 a white-eyed from a red-eyed vireo, not by the 

 colour of the iris of either bird's eye, but by the 

 yellowish white bars on the white-eyed vireo 's 

 wings which she had noticed at a glance. An- 

 other girl named the yellow-billed cuckoo, al- 

 most hidden among the shrubbery, by the 

 white thumb-nail spots on the quills of his out- 

 spread tail where it protruded for a second 

 from a mass of leaves. A little urchin from the 

 New York City slums was the first to point out 

 to his teacher, who had lived twenty years on a 

 farm, the faint reddish streaks on the breast of 

 a yellow warbler in Central Park. Many there 

 are who have eyes and see not. 



What does the study of birds do for the 



