X Foreword 



enthusiastic interest in them, and I have seen 

 this not once but many times. 



I have organized many bird clubs — clubs 

 which have for their chief object not so much the 

 study of birds as the extension of hospitality to 

 them, and in every case the result has been a 

 better understanding between the members and 

 their feathered neighbors, the creation of a strong 

 local sentiment in favor of birds, and an amount 

 of rational enjoyment and moral uplift out of all 

 proportion to the labor and expense involved. 



The writer makes no claim to originality, 

 except in the idea that bird clubs may be made a 

 most powerful factor in the work of bird con- 

 servation, and incidentally in the social life of 

 the people in the towns and villages where they 

 are organized. Judging from his own experience it 

 should be possible in a few years' time to spread 

 a network of such clubs over the United States. 

 Any wide-awake, enthusiastic bird lover wjth a 

 reasonable knowledge of methods of attracting 

 and protecting birds can organize a bird club al- 

 most anywhere. In order to do so it is not neces- 

 sary to be an ornithologist; one need not know 

 a scarlet tanager from a great blue heron, 

 if only he has enthusiasm — that is absolutely 

 essential. 



Because of the enormous value of birds — 



