2 PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



deny it, perhaps in the same chapter. I have not looked the 

 matter up, but assume that it is true. What of it ? It does not 

 signify a want of correct observation, but that the same species 

 is not always the same bird, judged solely by its habits, 

 thrush back of my garden has, at this moment, a nest upon the 

 ground ; another of these birds is nesting in an ivy-wrapped 

 sassafras, twenty feet from the ground. A Carolina wren is 

 nesting now in the poultry-house ; and last summer two nests 

 were found in little caves on the hill-side caves of the birds' 

 own digging ! The individuality of all our birds is strong far 

 stronger, I think, than that of any other class of animals. They 

 live as suit their tastes, and as their surroundings permit and 

 suggest. To take the nest of one pair of birds ; to follow these 

 individuals from one year's end to another ; to mark their every 

 utterance, and then to describe such nest, the habits and wan- 

 derings and voices of this one pair as the correct and unvary- 

 ing life-history of all individuals of that species, would be just 

 as absurd as to describe one individual man, with his wife and 

 children, and imply that all men, women, and children were 

 like unto them. 



It is for this reason that no one person has written an en- 

 tirely satisfactory history of our birds. Such a work must be 

 the result of many observers in every nook and corner of the 

 country. 



It would be strange indeed if, in an effort to study the hab- 

 its of about three hundred and fifty species of animals, I 

 should not at times have fallen into error. This will surely 

 result if the attention is divided among several objects ; and 

 yet how difficult it is to ignore five out of six creatures, when 

 all are equally prominent features of the day's ramble ! 



I have in but very few cases endeavored to follow any ani- 

 mal from the cradle to the grave ; but my aim has been rather 

 to record my impressions of such as I saw, as I saw them ; and 

 never have I started out with the intention of making every 

 creature I found conform to the rules laid down for its conduct 

 by those who assume to know more about animals than these 

 know about themselves. 



CHAKLES C. ABBOTT, M. D. 

 PCOSPECT HILL, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY, May 25, 1881. 



