REV. GEO. B. PRATT. 17 
Half-hid in tip-top apple blooms he swings, 
Or climbs against the breeze with quivering wings, 
Or, giving way to ’t in a mock despair, 
Runs down, a brook of laughter, through the air.’ 
“He is the jolliest bird that flies. There is no other who 
sings with such joyful, enthusiastic abandon. He is always 
hilariously happy. He not only sings from his perch, but in 
his flight he rairis down a perfect shower of tinkling, rollick- 
ing, ecstatic jubilation. His is not the highest style of art, 
but as a comic opera-singer he is unrivaled. His lack of 
the purest quality of voice does not disturb him in the least. 
He probably consoles himself with the thought that when 
the Lord gives any one a fine tenor voice he does not seem 
to think it necessary to give him either manners or morals.” 
There is one bird to which I was always attracted in my 
home in Minnesota—the Nuthatch. I shall never forget his 
way of climbing around the boles of trees, particularly when 
he went spirally head downward—a feat that no other bird 
is able todo. He also roosts, I have read, with his head 
downward, hanging on to the bark. 
I found in my first observations that I needed some book 
to be my guide. I was directed to Jordan’s “ Vertebrates,” 
which gives a fair and short key to North American birds, 
and is also an excellent guide to mammals, reptiles, and fishes. 
Upon the margins of my book, opposite many birds, is the 
letter ‘“‘ M,” which means a check list of Minnesota birds, 
taken from a list made by Dr. Coues before he published his 
“ Key to North American Birds,” which has since become 
my special court of appeal. 
A series of books, however, is a necessity. My library 
began to increase. It was apparent that as the dollars 
went out for books my pocket-book flattened, so that my 
wife was occasionally startled at the docking off of one end 
of the household machinery to supply the other end. I 
gradually accumulated all of Thoreau’s works, ending with 
the one called “Winter,” containing Thoreau’s notes com- 
