PREFACE. 
Love of the birds is a natural passion and one which requires neither 
analysis nor defense. The birds live, we live; and life is sufficient answer unto 
life. But humanity, unfortunately, has had until recently other less justifiable 
interests—that of fighting pre-eminent among them—so that out of a gory past 
only a few shadowy names of bird-lovers emerge, Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, 
ZElian. Ornithology as a science is modern, at best not over two centuries and 
a half old, while as a popular pursuit its age is better reckoned by decades. It 1s, 
therefore, highly gratifying to those who feel this primal instinct strongly to be 
able to note the rising tide of interest in their favorite study. Ornithology has 
received unwonted attention of late, not only in scientific works but also in 
popular literature, and it has taken at last a deserved place upon the curriculum 
of many of our colleges and secondary schools. 
We of the West are just waking, not too tardily we hope, to a realization of 
our priceless heritage of friendship in the birds. Our homesteads have been 
chosen and our rights to them established; now we are looking about us to take 
account of our situation, to see whether indeed the lines have fallen unto us in 
pleasant places, and to reckon up the forces which make for happiness, welfare, 
and peace. And not the least of our resources we find to be the birds of Washing- 
ton. They are here as economic allies, to bear their part in the distribution of 
plant life, and to wage with us unceasing warfare against insect and rodent foes, 
which would threaten the beneficence of that life. They are here, some of them, 
to supply our larder and to furnish occupation for us in the predatory mood. 
But above all, they are here to add zest to the enjoyment of life itself; to please 
the eye by a display of graceful form and piquant color; to stir the depths of 
human emotion with their marvelous gift of song; to tease the imagination by 
their exhibitions of flight; or to goad aspiration as they seek in their migrations 
the mysterious, alluring and ever insatiable Beyond. Indeed, it is scarcely too 
much to say that we may learn from the birds manners which will correct our 
own; that is, stimulate us to the full realization in our own lives of that ethical 
program which their tender domestic relations so clearly foreshadow. 
