IlSrTEODUCTION. 



" You must have the bird in your heart before you can find it 

 in the bush ; and when once you have it in your heart the finding 

 of it in the bush is a secondary matter." — John Burroughs. 



We may with profit take a look at the life and ways of 

 some ot our common birds, and study with a growing 

 interest a few of the parts that characterize them and 

 that fit them so perfectly for their life in the air. There 

 is a perpetual interest centering in the study of the 

 adaptation and fitness of the varied forms of life as it 

 may be seen about every home, "be it ever so humble," 

 and that, too, with no other equipment than one's eyes 

 and patience. 



Fortunate is that person whose home or school life has 

 been of such a character as to develop a love for the 

 beautiful in nature. He may drink from the same foun- 

 tain with poets and artists, and picture to himself the 

 greatest works of art, and read first hand the most beau- 

 tiful poems in all the realms of literature. 



" So it is with everything; so it is with the birds. The 

 interest they excite is of all grades, from that which looks 

 upon them as items of millinery, up to that of the makers 

 of ornithological systems, and who ransack the world for 

 specimens, and who have no doubt that the chief end of a 

 bird is to be named and catalogued — the more synonyms 

 the better. Somewhere between these two extremes 

 comes the person whose interest in birds is friendly rather 

 than scientific ; who has little taste for shooting, and 

 l9ss for dissecting ; who delights in the living creatures 



(5) 



