BIRD HOMES 



PART I 



Chapter I 

 INTRODUCTORY 



IT has been suggested that a work on Bird Homes might do 

 more harm than good, since it would add to the knowledge 

 already possessed by the birds' human enemies. I think this 

 surely a mistake ; a near acquaintance with our feathered friends 

 in their homes will surely give to the most careless such an in- 

 terest in the birds and their daily lives, such a new sense of com- 

 panionship with them and affection for them, that it can but work 

 for their good. Yet it may be as well to say emphatically at the 

 outset : Make your object the study of birds through their nests 

 and eggs. Don't add a new terror to the many that already beset 

 anxious little bird-mothers by disturbing them during the breed- 

 ing season or taking their eggs for a so-called "collection." If 

 you stop at this you will lose some of the choicest pleasures that 

 fall to the lot of the nature lover. 



So far as I know, this side of the birds' life has been com- 

 paratively neglected. There are plenty of scientific works on 

 oology and nidification, and so on, but hardly anything that 

 deals with the subject from what might be called the " human " 

 side. If this book helps the ordinary unscientific person to get 

 some closer glimpse of the birds in their roles as heads of a family ; 

 to study their wonderfully adapted nests and beautiful eggs as 

 manifestations of that bird nature which is so charmingly varied 

 and so endlessly interesting if it does this in any measure at all 

 I shall be more than satisfied. 



