comstock] A GRADED COURSE IN BIRD STUDY 153 



cat. How to make a place attractive to birds. Should the red 

 squirrel be considered a dangerous enemy of birds ? 



During the winter much attention should be given to the loca- 

 tion, collecting and the determ ning of the empty nests. 



A very important part of this year's work should be the writing 

 of little stories of migrating birds which should include something 

 descriptive of the country where the bird spends the winter, and a 

 map of its migrations. This correlates the bird work with English, 

 geography and drawing in a most interesting manner. An outline 

 map of North and South America may be traced by the pupil from his 

 geography and the northern and southern limits of the bird's migra- 

 tion be indicated with a blue pencil. The story may be very simple ; 

 the very interesting readers supplementary to geography should be 

 used to give the pupil a picture of the land where the bird winters. 



As soon as the birds are observed after the return in the spring, 

 the pupils should consult the bird books and make note of the 

 places where they have spent the winter. 



Much attention should be given to stimulation of observation of 

 birds out of doors. There should be kept in each room a bird 

 calendar. To make this in the most interesting form for this grade 

 it should be illustrated with colored pictures of birds. This is best 

 done by using large sheets of cardboard with the record of the birds 

 observed, the date, and the locality, the name of the observer at the 

 center and the illustrations along the sides. The pupils should 

 make the illustrations by coloring outlines of the birds which 

 should be cut out and pasted on in appropriate places. Those 

 outlines which are most skillfully colored should be chosen for this 

 and thus create competition in doing work well. 



SIXTH GRADE 



The bird work of this year should be as much as possible in the 

 field. Each pupil should be provided with a field notebook which 

 may be a special one designed for this purpose or may be one of his 

 own making. In any case they should include a plan for the fol- 

 lowing observations on each bird : 

 Date 



Name of bird 



i. Where is the bird seen: Woods, border of woods, bushes, 

 open field, trees or bushes along fences, roadside, border of stream, 

 marsh, pond or lake, garden, orchard, about buildings. 



