REV. GEO. B. PRATT. 75 



of whom it is said that when in his profound study he gets 

 tired of one book he turns to another on an entirely different 

 subject. 



Year after year new birds come into the life of an amateur. 

 I have found if I obtained observations of only one or two 

 new birds in a season — birds that I had never seen before, 

 there is a feeling of great satisfaction. I realize that there 

 comes a time when a scientist has pretty nearly exhausted 

 his field of migration ; but in the department of habits I 

 doubt whether the field is ever exhausted. 



A bona-fide ornithologist may laugh when I say T never 

 knew a Wood-thrush until three years after I began work. 

 Location has something to do with this. Certain birds are 

 never seen in certain localities. Some are in one part of 

 the country, some in another. Mr. John Burroughs wrote 

 at one time of the valley of the Hudson River, that if he 

 found a Brown Thrasher in a circle of six miles he was fortu- 

 nate. The red squirrel and the Cow-bird were their greatest 

 enemies, as these are also of scores of other birds, I think he 

 said three-fourths of the destruction of birds was due to these 

 two rascals. In Minnesota I stood one day where, on the tops 

 of three magnificent trees, I could hear and see three Brown 

 Thrashers singing away for dear life. I knew also that three 

 nests were situated somewhere within the circumference 

 of half a mile, one of which I found afterward. This bird 

 always sings at quite a little distance from his nest. And 

 what a repertory it is ! Magnificent ! Cat-bird, Mocking- 

 bird, Oriole, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, and Robin, all com- 

 bined in a flow of song which ripples out from just one set 

 of reeds, just one marvellous throat-formation ! I prefer a 

 Brown Thrasher to a Mocking-bird, If cages must be in 

 houses and birds in cages, give me a cage with a Brown 

 Thrasher in it. 



I cannot forget the pleasure I felt when I first found a 

 Bobolink in his summer dress. The night-cap covering of the 

 little fellow was very striking. I had in Philadelphia eaten 



