BIRD HOMES 



PART I 



Chapter I 



INTRODUCTORY 



It has been suggested that a work on Bird Homes might do 

 more harm than good, since it would add to the knowledge 

 already possessed by the birds' human enemies. I think this 

 surely a mistake ; a near acquaintance with our feathered friends 

 in their homes will surely give to the most careless such an in- 

 terest in the birds and their daily lives, such a new sense of com- 

 panionship with them and affection for them, that it can but work 

 for their good. Yet it may be as well to say emphatically at the 

 outset : Make your object the study of birds through their nests 

 and eggs. Don't add a new terror to the many that already beset 

 anxious little bird-mothers by disturbing them during the breed- 

 ing season or taking their eggs for a so-called "collection." If 

 you stop at this you will lose some of the choicest pleasures that 

 fall to the lot of the nature lover. 



So far as I know, this side of the birds' life has been com- 

 paratively neglected. There are plenty of scientific works on 

 oology and nidification, and so on, but hardly anything that 

 deals with the subject from what might be called the " human " 

 side. If this book helps the ordinary unscientific person to get 

 some closer glimpse of the birds in their roles as heads of a family ; 

 to study their wonderfully adapted nests and beautiful eggs as 

 manifestations of that bird nature which is so charmingly varied 

 and so endlessly interesting — if it does this in any measure at all 

 1 shall be more than satisfied. 



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