PREFACE 



IT is perhaps hardly necessary to call attention to the great awakening of 

 popular interest that has come about in recent years in relation to our birds, 

 an interest that has been fostered not only by the admirable work of the Audubon 

 Societies and the widespread nature teaching in the schools, but by the deeper, 

 broader sentiment which is leading back to, and nearer to, Nature. The in- 

 creasing number of people yearly turning back to the country, either for recrea- 

 tion or permanent residence, has naturally stimulated a desire to know more 

 intimately their surroundings, the trees, the flowers, and the birds. Few of 

 these people have either the inclination or the desire to become professional 

 ornithologists, but they have wished to know at least the names and more inter- 

 esting facts in the life histories of the birds they see constantly about them. To 

 supply this demand for popular information, a large number of works have been 

 written, and their extensive circulation proves that they have filled a real want. 

 But most of these are more or less local in their scope, only a very few, for instance, 

 treating of the birds of a whole country, and the time seems ripe for a work of 

 moderate size, and in a single volume, that shall set forth in non-technical lan- 

 guage the salient facts regarding the birds of the world. Such a work I have 

 attempted to prepare. 



Following several preliminary chapters on the general appearance and struc- 

 ture of birds, their migrations, distribution, classification, etc., every family 

 has been passed in review and accorded approximately equal and even treat- 

 ment. In many cases this amounts to a mention of all the known species of a 

 family ; but in the larger families it has, of course, been possible to include only 

 the more important or more interesting forms, though it is presumed that enough 

 have been included to give a fairly comprehensive picture. The treatment of 

 the so-called game birds, both aquatic and non-aquatic, has purposely been 

 made very full, in the hope that it may also prove of interest to sportsmen as well 

 as to the general reader. Technical language has been avoided, so far as pos- 

 sible ; but in outlining the various groups a certain amount has been necessary, 

 since the characters separating them are often relatively obscure, structural 

 details. The main attention has been given to the birds as they appear in their 

 homes that is, their plumage, habits, songs, nests and eggs, food, etc. It 

 is not intended for this book to be used for the identification of collections of 

 bird skins, for the descriptions of size and plumage have only been made full 

 enough to enable one to draw a fairly definite picture of the living bird. For the 

 complete, technical descriptions the reader is referred to the numerous well-known 

 treatises on the subject. 



