THE APPEAL OF THE SPORT 



One day I went out to the athletic field to see the 

 boys play a game of baseball. It was the fifth of May, 

 and just across the road which bordered the field I saw 

 and heard two male Bobolinks, the first arrivals in 

 that locality. I wondered whether the boys would 

 notice them, but they did, and after the game there 

 was a grand race to report the Bobolink for the list. 



Out of school hours some of the boys, on their own 

 hook, scour the fields and woods for miles around, and 

 Ned is one of these. Young as he is, he has already 

 come to know the birds wonderfully well, and he seldom 

 meets one he cannot recognize, if only he has a good 

 glance at it. There is keen rivalry among these boys 

 as to who can see and identify the largest number of 

 kinds of birds each year. This sends them actively 

 scouring around outdoors in all sorts of places, and at 

 all times, too, winter as well as summer. It is splendid 

 exercise, especially the climbing of the steep wooded 

 hills, up over the rocks, scrambling through thickets of 

 mountain laurel. There is genuine sport in this in 

 itself, yet an incentive, such as an old Hoot Owl some- 

 where in those wild, secluded woods up near the sum- 

 mit, makes it doubly exciting. There are plenty of 

 Ruffed Grouse in these fastnesses which can be pur- 

 sued, either with the gun in the fall, or without the gun 

 at any time — to find their nests, to watch the mother 

 lead her brood, to learn where they stay at different 

 hours of the day, where they go when flushed, how 

 many times one can put up the same bird, and so on. 



4 



