Prelude 
with this dull, dead remainder,—the grace and 
wild-wood spirit gone, a relict of tissue, skin, and 
feathers. Verily, I would rather see a living 
crow than a dead bird-of-paradise. Every orni- 
thologist realizes how much more intelligent 
pleasure there is in studying the habits and 
song of the very commonest bird that comes 
about the door, than in looking at the finest 
assortment of pale-feathered, beady-eyed, cot- 
ton-stuffed, and wire-mounted mummies that 
the world has ever seen. 
9 
The following pages are an informal diary of 
a year’s observations made, as business would 
permit, in Central Park, of New York City, in 
1893. The area of observation is not men- 
tioned as giving any additional interest to the 
narrative, only as the localizing of such impres- 
sions naturally imparts to them more definite- 
ness and reality. It is the foil of substantial 
background to set off the prominent objects in 
-ne picture. , 
While the Park is scarcely half a mile in 
width, and about two and one-half miles long, 
the observations here recorded, with slight ex- 
II 
