Our Common Birds and How to Know Them 



The suburban dweller, who is able to continue his observations through every 

 month of the year, will have the privilege of watching the coming and going of the' 

 birds in their migrations, and, knowing the periods of these, will be enabled to inspect 

 each species as it arrives, forewarned, so to speak, of the name of the particular bird 

 he may expect to see. The great advantage that an observer so circumstanced will 

 possess over him whose country life is limited to a few months of the Summer, when the * 

 birds are present in bewildering confusion, is obvious. The celebrated scientist, John 

 Tyndall, when illustrating in a lecture on Sound the value of previous information concern- 

 ing what was to be expected from an experiment, relates an incident in his acquaintance 

 with Faraday. He says : "I had everything arranged, when, just before I excited the 

 magnet, he laid his hand upon my arm and asked, ' What am 1 to look for ? " And then 

 he adds that even "that prince of experimenters felt the advantage of having his attention 

 directed to the special point in question." Just so it is with the student of birds. When 

 told that the Song Sparrow arrives early in March ; that it is streaked above with red and 

 brown ; that it has a chestnut crown ; and that its song is "one high note thrice repeated 

 and then a canary-like cadenza ; " and when early in March he hears such a song, and, 



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