1 62 



THE NIDIOLOGIST 



Gossip about Books and Birds. 



LOWELL said, "In the days when books 

 were few men mastered those few, but 

 now the multitude of books lord it 

 over the man." This is true even in a single 

 branch of study, and the man who wishes to 

 keep himself informed regarding the i)rogress 

 of thought and the latest discoveries in Orni- 

 thology must either wade through a voluminous 

 current literature, or must exercise good judg- 

 ment in selecting his reading. 



Ornithology has its classics — great master- 

 pieces which cannot be too highly valued or 

 too thoroughly studied — yet the student of a 

 progressive science in which new discoveries 

 are being made almost daily cannot confine 

 himself exclusively to the classic literature of 

 his specialty, but must read a share of the 

 publications of the day. 



New light is being thrown on many of the 

 problems of morphology, new facts are steadily 

 accumulating regarding the habits and migra- 

 tions of birds, and as the country is cleared and 

 the center of population shifts, the distribution 

 of species varies and new questions arise and 

 demand solution. 



The species represented in any given locality 

 are not the same to-day that they were a few 

 years ago. Man has exterminated some di- 

 rectly and others indirectly. The clearing of 

 the land has destroyed the nesting places of 

 some species, and the early mowing of grass 

 and grain has played havoc with the nests of 

 others. As the trees are removed and wood- 

 land species disappear, it often happens that 

 species from other localities flock in to take 

 their places, and birds from the plains and 

 grasslands repeople the new prairies made by 

 men. Habits change with the change in the 

 surroundings. Many learn to vary their food, 

 and some acquire new modes of constructing 

 their nests. As fast as old questions are 

 answered new ones arise, and the naturalist 

 must be ever on the lookout both among birds 

 and among books. 



One of the first necessities of the naturalist 

 in any branch is a correct understanding of the 

 color terms used by writers in his line, and 

 some book for reference is needed. We all 

 know yellow, red, brown, and blue, of course, 

 but it is not easy to determine what particular 

 shade of these varying, blending hues an author 

 has in mind, and the author himself is often 

 uncertain regarding the jjropriety of his own 

 terms. Some standard of comparison is a 

 positive necessity, and this is to he found to 

 perfection in Dr. Robert Ridgway's Nomen- 

 clature of Colors for the Use of Naturalists. 

 Even the amateur finds this invaluable, yet 



there are people whose time and opportunities 

 for study are so scanty that they do not feel 

 justified in paying four dollars for even the best 

 of works on a single phase of the science. All 

 such students will greet Frank M. Chapman's 

 Handbook of Birds of the Eastern United States 

 as an unalloyed blessing, for it is an accurate 

 and fairly complete account of birds, written 

 in simi)le, nontechnical language, especially 

 adapted to the needs of the beginner, and it 

 contains a color plate by which the color terms 

 used in the text can be readily identified. 



Dr. R. W. Shufeldt reviewed this work in a 

 late number of the Nidiologist, praising it 

 highly. The illustrated key to the families 

 and the analytical keys to most of the species 

 are convenient for frequent and hurried refer- 

 ence, and are simple in the extreme. 



Yet there is another " key " that is simpler 

 still. Miss Florence Merriam, in Birds Seen 

 through Opera Glasses, gives us useful clues to 

 aid us in identifying a bird by telling us that it 

 is " larger than a Sparrow," " larger than a 

 Robin," "smaller than a Robin," etc. The 

 veriest tyro in Ornithology will smile in pity, 

 and the hardened scientist will groan, but the 

 overworked people whose only intercourse with 

 nature is in an occasional day's outing will find 

 even these scanty hints of use. 



Many a man or woman going on a rare holi- 

 day, to take a hurried glimpse at " out of 

 doors," will envy the experiences of William 

 Warren Brown, as related in the May Lippin- 

 cotfs. Mr. Brown discusses " High Flyers and 

 Low Flyers," and tells us how to use our eyes, 

 ears, and opera glasses, and how in his single 

 walk between the Hudson River and Long 

 Island Sound he saw Brown Thrashers, Che- 

 winks, House Wrens, Chimney Swifts, and, in 

 fact, more birds than many of us could get a 

 glimpse at in a year, but then that was when 

 the spring migration was at its height, and 

 nature passed in review before him. 



Most such popular articles are written in a 

 chatty, desultory style, so that but little in- 

 formation is to be obtained from them. Of 

 course this does not apply to such sketches as 

 Dr. Shufeldt's "Outliers Among Birds," in 

 the Popular Science Monthly, or to the papers 

 on " Auks and Their Allies," by the same 

 author, in Popular Science News, nor to any of 

 the essays of the late Frank Bolles. 



Wiiile Traveling in a Tree Top with Dr. 

 Charles C. Abbott, and even when reading 

 Little Brothers of the Air, or any of Mrs. Olive 

 Thornc-Miller's many other books, we some- 

 times find ourselves agreeably entertained, but 

 not perceptibly instructed. Mrs. Miller's 

 "Tramps with an Enthusiast," in the Atlantic 

 Monthly for May, is exceptionally good, how- 



