PREFACE 



As SEVERAL hundred thousand readers have been kind 

 enough to approve the author's foiu" previous volumes on 

 birds, it has been suggested that a single volume might be 

 helpful, dealing with the birds most worth knowing and 

 chosen by the author from these writings with the view of 

 interesting an ever-widening circle of new friends in the 

 most appealing form of wild hfe there is still left about us. 



An immense wave of interest in birds recently swept over 

 the country where less than a generation ago was complete 

 indifference to their extermination. Why this change of 

 the people's thought? Largely as the logical result of per- 

 sistent and highly intelligent educative work by the 

 Audubon Societies, directed by scientific and altruistic men 

 and women, in reaching school children, clubs of many 

 kinds, granges, editors, and legislators. Vast quantities of 

 well-written pamphlets and beautiful colored pictiu-es, such 

 as are used to illustrate this book, are distributed annually; 

 bird clubs are actively at work aU over the country; Junior 

 Audubon classes graduate fresh recruits; wardens are safe- 

 guarding the breeding grounds of the egret, gull, tern, eider, 

 and other birds dangerously near the vanishing point; 

 bird sanctuaries have been established in coimtless parks, 

 cemeteries, private estates, and public domains; the mak- 

 ing of bird houses, fountains, and restaurants has suddenly 

 become a well-advertised business as well as a pastime for 

 every boy and girl who can handle a hammer; people are 



