FOREWORD 



This study of birds and poets is divided into 

 twelve chapters, one for each month of the year, 

 beginning with April, the opening of the birds' 

 year. The birds are discussed in the month most 

 appropriate to them by reason of habits of nesting, 

 migration or other distinguishing characteristics. 

 This plan enables the reader to live through the 

 year with the birds, and to learn when to look for 

 them. 



The observations were made in Illinois, Indiana 

 and Michigan, and the book may be used as a safe 

 guide for the study of the more common birds of 

 this latitude from the Rocky Mountains east to the 

 Atlantic seaboard. 



If out of the joy of writing it there has grown an 

 unconscious purpose in this little book it is that 

 busy men might pause and see the beauties of the 

 world all about them and "read nature like the 

 manuscript of heaven," for as surely as they do so 

 and life 



"Hath yet one spring unpoisoned, it will be 

 Like a beguiling music to its flow." 



SAMUEL A. HARPER. 



Chicago, December I, 1917. 



