2 PREFACE 



The book is enriched by the drawings of a talented 

 artist, M. Titus Csorgey, who, I need not say, is himself 

 a skilled naturalist. These are so executed as to render 

 it easy to the most casual observer to identify the various 

 markings of the plumage as well as the mere form of 

 the bird. 



The work makes no pretence at being scientific in the 

 ordinary sense of the word. It has been written with 

 the view of providing a ready handbook for the farmer, 

 the gardener, the student, and bird-lovers generally ; 

 and it embodies the result of exact data kept by 

 correspondents of M. Herman's department in all parts 

 of the country ; so that the observations on which its 

 statements are grounded are the results of personal 

 investigation and dissection. 



In our country this study of the food of birds and the 

 part they play in the economy of nature has not received 

 the attention it demands. Yet it is one that affects the 

 entire community. It is true that in journals here and 

 there valuable papers on this subject have appeared, but 

 it is felt that among the innumerable books on bird life 

 which have been published of late years there has been 

 a lack which this little volume may supply. 



A few words as to myself and my present association 

 with M. Herman. From my earliest childhood I have 

 had a passionate love for birds and flowers. I remember 

 looking with wondering delight on the velvety upturned 

 faces of the variously tinted panstes that bordered the 

 paths leading up to the door of a certain farmhouse 

 where we stayed much in the summer-time, when I was 

 just four years old, wonder because our mother told 

 us* that God's finger painted them and I used to think 

 that He did it whilst we slept. Our father gave us 



