io INTRODUCTION. 



close, and a bird away back in Jurassic time was little 

 more than a feathered reptile. 



Birds are everywhere. There is no country too 

 cold nor any territory too hot for some of them ; and 

 in those areas where the extremes of climate occur, 

 it is not the apparently most rugged species only 

 that are found : there are as many small and delicate 

 forms as those of more sturdy build. Birds are 

 everywhere, in a more restricted sense. They are 

 not given to dwelling in remote spots, far from their 

 arch-enemy, man, but come boldly into our towns, 

 nest in our door-yards, and, as an extreme case, 

 sparrows have been known to build in a locomotive 

 round-house, where they were hidden half the time 

 by steam, and compelled to excessive screeching to 

 make themselves heard. Not all birds are as tame 

 as this, of course, but it is safe to assert that the very 

 wildest of them all would be less wary if man would 

 treat them with more consideration. This has been 

 so often demonstrated that no additional evidence 

 need be adduced. 



Man's thoughtlessness and greed have gone so far 

 as to render extinct some of our North American 

 birds during the present century, and others are 

 threatened. This is often commented upon, and sug- 

 gestions made to stop the work of destruction before 

 it is too late ; but nothing comes of it. Every book 

 or essay upon birds in general, therefore, is a matter 

 of ancient history to some extent. It is little more 

 than half a century since Wilson, Audubon, and 

 Nuttall wrote of the birds of this country ; and now 

 some of the species common then are gone entirely 



