INTEODUOTIOK 



The title of this work does not give the reader a 

 full understanding of its scope and contents, as it 

 treats of Scenes and Flowers as well as of Birds and 

 Seasons. Its present form was adopted for the sake of 

 brevity. .My classification of Birds is wholly arbitrary, 

 but not without signification. In the Index I have 

 given their scientific names, chiefly according to Nut- 

 tall, preferring those which were used by our early 

 writers on Ornithology, because the species can be 

 more easily identified by those than by the Greek names 

 applied to them in the new nomenclature. 



My essays are not biographies of the Birds. I treat 

 of them chiefly as songsters, and speak only of those 

 habits which render them useful, interesting, or pic- 

 turesque. I have confined myself principally to my 

 own personal observations, but have freely quoted from 

 several authors. I ought to remark in this place that 

 I am much indebted to Mr. John Burroughs, whose 

 essays on Birds and kindred subjects in " The At- 

 lantic Monthly" I formerly read with great pleasure. 



