THE FOREST iS,- 



sealed book even to his intimate friends, if they 

 are destitute of similar tastes and knowledge. 

 To their ears he speaks a stran<:;e hm<^aj^e, he 

 describes what is before them that they do not 

 see, what is audible to all, that they do not hear. 

 As a rule the naturalist is silent on these subjects 

 when he is among the Philistines, but enthu- 

 siastic and even loquacious when with the elect 

 and the sympathetic. 



The list of birds I have heard from my cot in 

 the forest is a long one and I shall not burden 

 the reader with it. I have observed as many as 

 one hundred and hfty different kinds of birds on 

 or from my farm, many of these are birds of pas- 

 sage or at least nest elsewhere. In 1915 I made 

 a census for the United States department of 

 agriculture of birds that nest on my farm and 

 the list totaled twenty-eight species. All ot 

 these I have heard from my cot in the forest. 

 They are as follows: ring-necked pheasant, black- 

 billed cuckoo, flicker, phoebe, kingbird, crow, 

 bobolink, red-winged blackbird, meadow-lark, 

 Baltimore oriole, bronzed grackle, purple tincli, 

 goldfinch, vesper. Savannah, chipping and song 



