Introduction 19 



By the first of June all the birds have arrived, those that 

 breed farther north have passed on and our own Summer 

 birds are absorbed with nesting cares. In midsummer the 

 birds are less active and sing little, but by the first of September 

 the southward migration has begun. The Fall migration is 

 not so conspicuous as that of Spring, as we already have birds 

 with us, the arrivals from the North are more silent, and the 

 local birds slip off quietly on the southern journey. 



I might have begun this book by announcing to the 

 unsophisticated reader that the avifauna of eastern North 

 America is divided into seventeen Orders; that thirteen Orders 

 are represented in Albany County; that several of these 

 Orders are divided and subdivided into many Families; that 

 the Order Passeres is the largest, and includes perching birds; 

 that the Order Raptores includes the birds of prey, such as 

 the eagles, hawks, owls, etc. ; that in the Order Macrochires is 

 found the apparently strange circumstance of the diminutive 

 Hummingbird and somewhat grotesque Nighthawk and Whip- 

 poor-will, classed together; that the Order Pici contains 

 the woodpeckers, and so on; but what would be the use? 

 If I did so you would probably picture me as an etiolated old 

 gentleman with but a wisp of hair left on his cranium, with 

 lean shanks in dilapidated pantaloons, and surrounded by a 

 formidable array of dried specimens, and books of learned 

 appearance. 



The musician must first master technique before he can 

 secure the finest artistic effects, but not so with the ornithologist, 

 or the bird student. Once upon a time the museum specimen 

 and the book came first, but not so with the present generation. 

 We go immediately to the fields and are greeted at once by the 



