IV PREFACE. 



pressed with the importance of becoming acquainted 

 with them. 



Still, it will be obviously impossible for the stu- 

 dent to cover the whole field of ornithology, and 

 the question arises, to what phase of the subject 

 he should give special attention. 



There are teachers who believe that classification 

 is the principal object of natural history study, and 

 the aim and end of their instruction is to teach the 

 pupil the names of Orders and Families, and the 

 characters on which they are based. So far as birds 

 are concerned, the plan is excellent as a preliminary 

 step, but to my mind it is of infinitely greater im- 

 portance to be able to recognize a Wood Thrush or a 

 Yeery than to define the Lamellirostral Grallatores. 



In this book structure and classification have, 

 therefore, been subordinated to matter which will 

 be of practical assistance to the student in identify- 

 ing the birds about his home, and in teaching him 

 to appreciate their economic, aesthetic, and scientific 

 value. 



If he lives in the country, this information may be 

 of service to him daily ; and this, it seems to me, is 

 a far more profitable kind of ornithology than that 

 which treats only of " Orders," and " Families," 

 and "leading types " which he will probably never 

 see outside of a museum or a zoological garden. 



Acting on this belief, I have written of the living, 

 rather than of the dead bird, and no attempt, there- 

 fore, has been made to describe the anatomy of 

 birds, but, in preference, the questions of economics, 

 aesthetics, form and habit, color, migration, song, 

 nesting, etc., have been dwelt on with the ob- 



