[Copyright, 1887, by Flocence A. Merriam.] 



F I F T Y CO M M O N BIRDS, 



AND HOW TO KNOW THEM. 



I. 



WHEN you have saved a man's life 

 you naturally take a new interest in 

 him, and feel that you would like to know 

 him; and so it is with the birds the mem- 

 bers of the Audubon Society have been 

 trying to rescue. You are so in the habit 

 of discriminating between men, and study- 

 ing their individual peculiarities, that it ap- 

 pears a comparatively easy matter to know 

 them; but with birds the case is entirely 

 different. There are so many kinds, and 

 yet they seem to look and to sing exactly 

 alike. Your task seems a hopeless one at 

 the outset. After a little, a new world of 

 interest and beauty opens before you, but 

 at first the difficulties you meet are almost 

 overwhelming. 



The best way is the simplest. Begin 

 with the commonest birds, and train your 

 ears and eyes by classifying every bird you 

 see, and every song you hear. Generalize 

 roughly at first, and finer distinctions will 

 easily be made later. Suppose, for in- 

 stance, that you go out in the fields on a 

 spring morning. From seven till ten is the 

 best time for beginners, and it is well to 

 commence with the birds you will see when 

 you have a" house in sight. Stand still a 

 few moments and you hear what sounds to 

 you like a confusion of songs. You think 

 you can never tell one from another. But 

 listen carefully and you will notice a dif- 

 ference at once. Some are true songs, with 

 a definite melody — and tune, if one can use 

 that word — like the song of some of the 

 sparrows, who always give three high notes 

 and then run down the scale. Others are 

 only monotonous trills, always the same two 

 notes on the .same key, varying only in 

 length and intensity; such as that of the 

 chipping bird, who makes one's ears fairly 

 ache as he sits in the sun trilling away 



with the complacency of a prima donna. 

 There is always plenty of talking going on, 

 chippering and chattering that do not 

 rise to the dignity of a song, but add to 

 the general confusion of sounds. This 

 should be ignored at first, and only the 

 louder songs listened for. 



When the trill and the elaborate song 

 are distinguished, other classifications are 

 easily made. The ear then catches the 

 difference in the quality of songs. On the 

 right the plaintive note of the meadowlark 

 is heard, while out of the grass at the left 

 comes the rollicking song of the light- 

 hearted bobolink. 



Having made a beginning with your 

 ears, the training of the eye can be taken 

 up in the same way. Here the crude dis- 

 tinctions of size and color are the first 

 steps. As the robin is the best known bird, 

 he serves as a convenient unit of measure, 

 an ornithological foot, so to speak. If 

 anything from a hummingbird to a robin, 

 is called small, and from the robin to the 

 crow large, a ground for practical dis- 

 tinctions is made that will be useful in get- 

 ting your bearings. And when you watch 

 carefully for colors, the birds will no longer 

 look all alike. The bright birds can be 

 put by themselves — the oriole with his 

 orange and black coat, the scarlet tanager 

 with his flaming plumage, and the common 

 bluebird, who, as Mr. Burroughs says, has 

 " the earth tinge on his breast and the sky 

 tinge on his back"* — all these can be 

 classed together; while the sparrows, fly- 

 catchers, thrushes and vireos can be dis- 

 tinguished from the bright, as the dull 

 colored birds. 



When the roughest part of the work is 

 done, and your eye and ear easily catch the 



*" Wake Robin," p. 12. 



