INTRODUCTION. XXV 
said to have its bird, as well as water, shed. An important consideration is that the 
tributary bird streams follow courses in no wise strictly dependent on points of com- 
pass.” 
All those of my readers who are especially interested in bird migration I refer to 
the above named pamphlet, to Dr. J. A. Allen’s “Origin of the Instinct of Migration of 
Birds” (Bulletin of the Nuttall Ornithological Club. Vol. V, p. 151—154), and Mr. W. 
W. Cooke’s “Report on Bird Migration in the Mississippi Valley in the years 1884 and 
1885.” (Washington: Government Printing Office. 1888.) 
Thus it is migration which carries away the living ornaments of the forest, 
the songsters of the wood, and brings them back in time; it is this instinct of bird 
nature which depopulates the surroundings of our lakes, ponds, and brooks, our 
meadows and fields, our glens and forests, and again repeoples them; this impulse, 
whose pain and pleasure we share when we bid farewell to our winged friends and 
welcome them home again. 
UTILITY OF OUR BIRDS. 
The friend of nature, and especially the lover of rural life, of plants and woodland 
scenery, can find no more interesting and refined reading matter than “Garden and 
Forest,’’ so ably conducted by Prof. C. S. Sargent, of Cambridge, Mass. In the interest 
of my readers I quote in full from its pages (Vol. II, p. 529) the following article, 
“The Utility of What Makes Life Interesting”: 
“Food, clothing, and shelter are the primeval, universal wants; but when these 
are supplied, new needs arise, the wish for increasing comfort and security, and then 
the desire to make life imteresting, so that it may be something more than mere exist- 
ence. The means to this end are as varied as the special qualities and dispositions of 
individual men, but, however it may reveal itself, this hunger for something beyond the 
means of physical subsistence is an ideal element in our nature. It is the origin of 
poetry and romance, and of all art. It is the source of progress and civilization, and 
is, indeed, the distinguishing endowment and crown of humanity. It is not enough for 
men to have food, clothing, and shelter in amplest supply. The physical life itself is 
not prosperous or secure when the mind is starved and dwarfed. Pleasant thought is 
a vital force. Interesting mental employment promotes health and longevity, and is a 
necessity for all. 
“The means, conditions, and occupations which make life interesting for some 
persons, have no such value or result for others. The sustaining pleasures of one man 
would be a burden and weariness to another. Growth carries the same individual 
beyond the earlier ideal satisfactions, and he discerns more truly what is normal, sane, 
and healthful. A cultivated and developed taste rejects what was once highly esteemed. 
In an advanced state of society every person would be free to employ his means and 
opportunities for the satisfaction of his own ideal needs—to pursue the objects which 
would make life most interesting to him, if he did not trespass upon the rights of 
