x INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



understanding of birds out-of-doors and the problems 

 which their life presents. 



In a recent article Mr. Scott said, " I think that in 

 every community there are enough people interested in 

 out-of-door life to cooperate in a movement to establish 

 a kindly relation with wild creatures." This is the key- 

 note of his work and his life, and it is because the pub- 

 lishers of this book have felt that all the men and 

 women who love nature bird nature as well as human 

 nature should know of the growth and causes of this 

 desire to understand the ways and characters of the 

 birds for birds have individual as well as tribal char- 

 acteristics that Mr. Scott has been asked to tell how, 

 step by step, he acquired his knowledge, through obser- 

 vation, out-of-doors exploration, training of the senses, 

 and (but in less degree) through books and tuition. 



Mr. Scott is a graduate of Harvard, where he was a 

 pupil of Louis Agassiz. In spite of a lameness which 

 compels him to walk, even in the house, with caution 

 and with the aid of a cane, he has travelled all over the 

 United States, pursuing his study of the life and char- 

 acter of the bird in its out-of-door, natural surroundings. 

 Not one of the least interesting things about his achieve- 

 ment is the fact that a physical impediment which would 

 be considered by many people to be an almost insu- 

 perable obstacle in his path as a naturalist, has really 

 turned out to be an advantage and aid. He is the 

 author of numerous scientific papers and of a compre- 

 hensive and elaborately printed and illustrated work on 

 birds entitled "Bird Studies." He lays great stress 

 on the principle that sympathy and love of the beautiful 

 are bound to come through a friendship established with 

 any kind of organic life, whether that organic life be a 



