December 
an incomparable background on which to pro- 
ject the tone and temper of all the other sea- 
sons of the year—the joy of spring, the luxuri- 
ance of summer, and the glory of autumn. 
Sky-filling and half-formless phantom shadow- 
ing the earth, and whose essential elements are 
darkness, clouds, and icy winds, Winter is the 
dread image of a scourge that devastates the 
world, 
‘* And reigns tremendous o’er the conquer’d year.” 
y 
School ornithology means, a bird in the 
hand—field ornithology, a bird in the bush; 
and in its wild freedom its life-history is com- 
prised under four aspects, viz., appearance (7.e., 
plumage and physique), migrations, general hab- 
its and song, and nidification. When one pro- 
ceeds to study these creatures he finds how the 
details involved in this summary begin to mul- 
tiply, so that thorough knowledge of any spe- 
cies, which at first seemed an easy matter to 
acquire, proves to be an affair of prolonged and 
perhaps endless research. It befits the purpose 
of this book to speak briefly of the foregoing 
a3 
