14 INTRODUCTION. 



saw yesterday and have seen for years are as charm- 

 ing to-day. With ever new delight we watch 



With what hot haste they tumble headlong through 

 The tangled vines and long grass wet with dew ; 

 In madcap chase rise to the outer air, 

 Glint in the sunshine, singing everywhere. 



To treat of the ornithology of a few acres and yet 

 group the birds ''geographically" rather than "sys- 

 tematically" may seem somewhat of a vagary, and 

 it remains with the reader to decide whether this 

 method be the wiser one ; but I have long thought 

 that a literally natural system is that which is the 

 daily experience of those who live in the country, 

 and the plan has much to commend it. There is no 

 spot but is the favorite one, not of a single, but of 

 several wholly unrelated species, and, just as the 

 sportsman speaks of the " reed" and " rail" of the 

 meadows, I have grouped the birds of the mill-pond, 

 the lowlands, the fields, the woods, and even the dusty 

 highways. Birds that voluntarily associate are not 

 separated in the mind of him who takes a quiet stroll 

 of a summer evening or rambles during his vacation 

 days. 



What the birds' status is in the hand-books mat- 

 ters little to most people, not even if, to further befog 

 the subject, a " quadrinomial nomenclature for elu- 

 cidating identification" be attached thereto. There 

 is happily a wide-spread impression that birds are 

 something more than mere "specimens" whereupon 

 distorting taxidermy has exercised its appalling lack 

 of skill. Even the alien sparrows of the streets give 



