INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS. 



" I am poorly situated ; there are no birds in my vicinity 

 except Robins and Wrens," you say. Nonsense ! it is impos- 

 sible. You make me feel as Dean Hole, the genial ecclesias- 

 tical rose-grower did when certain lazy amateur gardeners, 

 after admiring his rose garden, said that they could not 

 grow roses because their soil was unsuitable, exclaiming, 

 " Oh, what a garden yours is for roses ! Old Mr. Drone, our 

 gardener, tells us he never saw such soil as yours nor so bad 

 a soil as ours for roses." And the Dean dryly exclaimed, 

 " Herein lies a fact in horticulture, — Mr. Drone always has 

 a bad soil." 



Get the best possible results from your limited area, and 

 if it is anything better than a back yard, you need not be 

 discouraged. The difficulty with us Americans is that we 

 are accustomed to a limitless extent of country, and scram- 

 ble carelessly over it, in our amateur scientific investiga- 

 tions, as well as in other ways, instead of thoroughly 

 studying home first. If the English naturalists ranged as 

 wildly as we do, they would exhaust the island,- and fall off 

 the edge in a month. White, of Selborne, has left us a 

 book that is classic, from his knowledge of one county, and 

 our Thoreau has given us the perfect literature of wood- 

 craft from his intimate knowledge of a comparatively small 

 area. 



The first nest that you will probably find, and one that 

 will confront you at every turn, will be the Robin's. Com- 

 mon, rough in structure, and anything but pretty, it is a 

 type nevertheless; being partly made of sticks and lined 

 with clay, it is a combination of carpentry and masonry. 

 The Wood Thrush also uses mud in a similar manner, but 

 builds more neatly. Sparrows you will find lodged every- 

 where, — in the hedge, under bushes, by thick grass tufts, 

 — their individual nests being so much alike that it is diffi- 

 cult to distinguish them apart. Dried grass and fine roots 

 are the chief materials used by them, with the exception of 

 the little Chipping Sparrow, who combines horsehair and 

 pine-needles with the grasses, which, together with its 

 delicacy and small size, identify the nest. 



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