INTRODUCTION 



I WRITE these few introductory sentences to this volume only 

 to second so worthy an attempt to quicken and enlarge the gen- 

 eral interest in our birds. The book itself is merely an introduc- 

 tion, and is only designed to place a few clews in the reader's 

 hands which he himself or herself is to follow up. I can say that 

 it is reliable and is written in a vivacious strain and by a real 

 bird lover, and should prove a help and a stimulus to any one 

 who seeks by the aid of its pages to become better acquainted 

 with our songsters. The pictures, with a few exceptions, are 

 remarkably good and accurate, and these, with the various group- 

 ing of the birds according to color, season, habitat, etc., ought to 

 render the identification of the birds, with no other weapon than 

 an opera glass, an easy matter. 



When 1 began the study of the birds I had access to a copy 

 of Audubon, which greatly stimulated my interest in the pursuit, 

 but I did not have the opera glass, and I could not take Audubon 

 with me on my walks, as the reader may this volume, and he 

 will find these colored plates quite as helpful as those of Audubon 

 or Wilson. 



But you do not want to make out your bird the first time; 

 the book or your friend must not make the problem too easy for 

 you. You must go again and again, and see and hear your bird 

 under varying conditions and get a good hold of several of its 

 characteristic traits. Things easily learned are apt to be easily for- 

 gotten. Some ladies, beginning the study of birds, once wrote to 

 me, asking if I would not please come and help them, and set 

 them right about certain birds in dispute. I replied that that 

 would be getting their knowledge too easily; that what 1 and 

 any one else told them they would be very apt to forget, but that 

 the things they found out themselves they would always remem- 

 ber. We must in a way earn what we have or keep. Only thus 

 docs it become ours, a real part of us. 



Not very long afterward I had the pleasure of walking with 

 one of the ladies, and I found her eye and ear quite as sharp as 

 my own, and that she was in a fair way to conquer the bird king- 

 dom without any outside help. She said that the groves and 

 fields, through which she used to walk with only a languid inter- 



