PREFACE. 



IT is a matter of common notice that bird-life offers the most 

 attractive outdoor object of interest to the average schoolboy. 

 The almost human personality of birds, their varied form and 

 color, their ceaseless activity, their evasiveness, all conspire 

 to arouse an intense curiosity. And why should we not en- 

 courage this curiosity? If properly directed, it is certainly a 

 valuable and ready incentive, to be seized upon and harnessed 

 into the process of education. The keenness and accuracy of 

 observation cultivated by the overcoming of that very elusive- 

 ness so characteristic of birds, will remain long after the bird 

 itself is forgotten. It is a significant fact that many of our 

 greatest scientists and professional men admit their earliest 

 active interest to have been in bird-study, to which stage in 

 their mental development we may attribute a good part of that 

 training so invaluable in their later more serious lines of work. 

 In the following simple descriptives, my mother and I have 

 tried to help arouse and direct interest in bird-study among 

 school-children, as well as, possibly, older folks. It has been 

 our aim to present a fair amount of information, but diluted 

 with enough of the commonplace, so as not to balk the most 

 timid spirit of inquiry. We want the reader to finish each 

 chapter with a wish to find out more things for himself by 



direct observation of the living bird. 



JOSEPH GRINNELL. 

 STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA, 

 February 9, 1903. 



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