1 6 HOW TO STUDY BIRDS 



strong hold upon my sensibilities, giving me a dis- 

 tinct impetus from which I never recovered. This 

 is the earliest incident about a bird outdoors of which 

 I have any recollection. 



By another process I was being prepared to en- 

 tertain such interests. In our home we were so for- 

 tunate as to have a set of that great work, Audubon's 

 '* Birds of America/' the original octavo edition, in 

 seven volumes, with a colored plate of each species 

 of bird. These pictures absolutely fascinated me 

 with a peculiar witchery which I cannot describe, 

 but which was simply irresistible. In time I came 

 to have the feeling that I must find these birds for 

 myself. And when I found one or another which I 

 had been studying from the book, and for the first 

 time was actually face to face with it in real life, 

 there came over me a feeling of unutterable rapture. 



At the age of twelve there began another develop- 

 ment. I went that summer on a visit to a family in 

 the country in which there was a boy of thirteen who 

 had begun to collect and " stuff " birds. His process 

 was one of "* curing." He removed the ** insides," 

 filled the cavity, throat, and mouth with arsenic and 

 cotton, and mounted the bird with wires thrust 

 through its anatomy. The array of shriveled mum- 

 mies looked sorry enough, yet I took to it like a duck 

 to the water. When I returned home there was no 

 peace until I had a small single-barreled shotgun. 

 During the first week I came within an ace of blow- 

 ing off my brother's feet, and narrow escapes fol- 



