48 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 
bird plates. They are the plates which John Burroughs hailed with 
such ardent enthusiasm and which he considered sufficiently good 
to be of use in papering the interior of his study. The place of 
publication is certainly of interest, also. It shows that the west 
was waking up and that the interest was shifting from the con- 
servative East where Science was proper but Nature-Study as such 
hardly yet heard of, to the Mid-West where the interest in the out- 
of-doors was fresh, aes enthusiastic. 
The first volume of “‘ Birds,’’ for that is the title under which it 
first came out, informs us as follows, on the title page: ‘‘ Birds. 
Illustrated by Color Photography. A Monthly Serial. Designed to 
Promote a Knowledge of Bird Life.’’ Then there follows a verse of 
a few lines and the publisher's name which then was the Nature 
Study Publishing Company, Chicago, 1896. 
The Preface in volume one quotes a suggestion from the ‘‘ Ladies 
Home Journal, as follows ‘“‘An excellent suggestion was recently 
made by the Dept. of Agriculture at Washington that the public 
schools of the country shall have a new holiday to be known as 
Bird Day.’’ ‘This was a new thing at that time. It continues to say, 
“Of all animated nature, birds are the most beautiful in coloring, 
most graceful in form and action, swiftest in motion and most 
perfect emblem of freedom.’’ But the beauty would not alone justify 
their study. ‘‘They are withal, very intelligent and have many 
remarkable traits, so that their habits and characteristics made a 
delightful study for all lovers of nature. ‘‘Then the statement is 
made that the work done by this publication is useful “‘for the 
young.’’ It was the period when the ‘‘elders’’ did not participate 
in such enjoyments as watching a bird. That would have been too 
elementary, and not sufficiently sophisticated for any but children. 
It was a “pretty and harmless employment of time for the children.” 
“The Text is prepared with view of giving the children as clear an 
idea as possible, of haunts, habits, characteristics and such other 
information as will lead them to love the birds and delight in their 
study and acquaintance.”’ 
Notwithstanding the desire to acquaint the readers with birds, 
it seems to me that the publishers went rather far afield in the first 
volume. Out of the ten birds described and figured in the first 
number of volume one, eight of them are not North American birds, 
and one of the two which is a native bird has a habitat of very 
restricted area, being found only im some of the Southern states. 
