Vol. XXIV, No. 6 



WASHINGTON 



June, 1913 



!□> 



THE 



'ATEONAL 



D) A TcC 



A GEOGRAPHIC ACHIEVEMENT 



THROUGH the courtesy of the 

 Secretary of Agriculture, the Na- 

 tional Geographic Magazine 

 reprints on pages 669-697 of this num- 

 ber "Fifty Common Birds of Farm and 

 Orchard," which was prepared under the 

 direction of Henry W. Henshaw, Chief 

 of the Bureau of the Biological Survey, 

 and published as Farmers' Bulletin 513 

 of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 

 The illustrations are all from drawings 

 made by Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, the 

 skillful painter of American birds. 



To obtain the exquisite and delicate 

 colors of the pictures, which are such 

 faithful portrayals of the birds, the 

 printed sheets had to pass through the 

 presses eight times, therefore represent- 

 ing nearly two million impressions. This 

 immense amount of work naturally in- 

 volved a very large expense, but the 

 National Geographic Magazine felt 

 justified in spending the many thousands 

 of dollars to republish this wonderful 

 bulletin in order that every reader of the 

 Geographic may have in the household 

 this helpful guide and the accurate and 

 useful information that it contains. The 

 huge outlay required • for this colored 

 work would, however, not have been pos- 

 sible but for the great recent increase in 

 the circulation of the Magazine, which 

 has enabled us to bring the cost per copy 

 within reach by distributing the expense 

 over the larger edition. 



With the help of these beautiful pic- 

 tures and clear text the reader will be 



able easily to identify fifty of our com- 

 mon birds. While this valuable contri- 

 bution will be specially serviceable in the 

 summer months, when our readers spend 

 more time in the open, it will prove an 

 equally convenient introduction to some 

 of our feathered friends throughout the 

 entire year. 



Just as remarkable as the fifty beauti- 

 ful pictures is the quantity of concise 

 information given about each individual 

 bird, and which is the result of long studv 

 by some of the best bird men and women 

 in America. For many years the experts 

 of the Biological Survey have been mak- 

 ing accurate tests to determine which 

 birds are useful to man and which de- 

 structive. The contents of the stomachs 

 of many thousands of specimens have 

 been analyzed with a view of finding 

 whether the bird helps the farmer by eat- 

 ing injurious insects and noxious weeds, 

 or hurts the farmer by eating his fruits 

 and grain. 



These investigations have shown that, 

 with rare exceptions, birds are useful 

 everywhere, and that without their help 

 successful agriculture would be impossi- 

 ble. "The activity of birds in the pur- 

 suit of insects is still further stimulated 

 by the fact that the young of most spe- 

 cies, even those which are by no means 

 strictly insectivorous, require great quan- 

 tities of animal food in the early weeks 

 of existence, so that during the summer 

 months — the flood time of insect life — 

 birds are compelled to redouble their at- 



