WHAT I HAVE DONE WITH BIRDS 



articulate and mount from which to draw illustrations, he will no 

 doubt testify that the birds are the wildest, shyest things alive, 

 because that has been his experience with them. 



If he goes with a note-book, a handful of wheat and the soul 

 of a poet, he will write down the birds as almost human, because 

 his own great heart humanizes their every action. 



I go with a camera for the purpose of bringing from the fields 

 and forests characteristic pictorial studies of birds, and this book 

 is to tell and prove to you what my experiences have been with 

 them. I slip among them in their parental hour, obtain their like- 

 nesses, and tell the story of how the work was accomplished. I 

 was born in the country and grew up among the birds in a place 

 where they were protected and fearless. A deep love for, and a 

 comprehension of, wild things runs through the thread of my dis- 

 position, peculiarly equipping me to do these things. 



In one season, when under ten years of age, I located sixty 

 nests, and I dropped food into the open beaks in every one of 

 them. Soon the old birds became so accustomed to me, and so con- 

 vinced of my good intentions, that they would alight on my head 

 and shoulders in a last hop to reach their nests with the food they 

 had brought. Playing with the birds was my idea of fun. Pets 

 were my sort of dolls. It did not occur to me that I was learning 

 anything that would be of use in after years; now comes the 

 realization that knowledge acquired for myself in those days is 

 drawn upon every time I approach the home of a bird. 



When I decided that the camera was the only method by which 

 to illustrate my observations of bird life, all that was necessary to 

 do was to get together my outfit, learn how to use it, to compound 

 my chemicals, to develop and fix my plates, and tone and wash 

 my prints. How to approach the birds I knew better than any- 

 thing else. 



This work is to tell of and to picture my feathered friends of 



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