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 
Veery 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, zsthetic, 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 zoélogical 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, 
esthetics, form and habit, color, migration, song, 
nesting, etc., have been dwelt on with the ob- 
