THE INVITATION 205 



enthusiasm has open to him or her the whole field 

 anew, and is eligible to experience all the thrill and 

 delight of original discoverers. 



But let me say, in the same breath, that the 

 books can by no manner of means be dispensed 

 with. A copy of Wilson or Audubon, for refer- 

 ence and to compare notes with, is invaluable. In 

 lieu of these, access to some large museum or col- 

 lection would be a great help. In the beginning, 

 one finds it very difficult to identify a bird from 

 any verbal description. Reference to a colored 

 plate, or to a stuffed specimen, at once settles the 

 matter. This is the chief value of the books; they 

 are charts to sail by; the route is mapped out, and 

 much time and labor thereby saved. First find 

 your bird; observe its ways, its song, its calls, its 

 flight, its haunts; then shoot it (not ogle it with a 

 glass), and compare with Audubon. In this way 

 the feathered kingdom may soon be conquered. 



The ornithologists divide and subdivide the birds 

 into a great many orders, families, genera, species, 

 etc., which, at first sight, are apt to confuse and 

 discourage the reader. But any interested person 

 can acquaint himself with most of our song-birds 

 by keeping in mind a few general divisions, and 

 observing the characteristics of each. By far the 

 greater number of our land- birds are either warblers, 

 vireos, flycatchers, thrushes, or finches. 



The warblers are, perhaps, the most puzzling. 

 These are the true Sylvia, the real wood-birds. 

 They are small, very active, but feeble songsters, 



