May, 1920 AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 99 
able asset resulting from my incursion into the before unknown field of 
microscopy. I may add in connection with the use of the microscope that it is 
greatly to be regretted that the class of amateur microscopists of fifty years 
and more ago has become almost, or quite, extinct. The use of the micro- 
scope is no longer a fad of the many but the serious business of the few, and, 
while the discoveries with the instrument have been of surpassing value to 
mankind, I cannot but think that even as a plaything the microscope has many 
valuable lessons to teach and a world of beauty and interest to reveal to the 
inquiring tyro. | 
POPULAR TREATISES ON BIRDS 
Soon after joining the Survey I dreamed of the possibility of a series of 
illustrated department bulletins on our common birds, which could be dis- 
tributed freely over the country as a sort of textbook to foster and stimulate 
an interest in bird life. The cost of such books of course was the chief. obstacle 
to the project, but in 1912 I was fortunate enough to interest in it the then 
Secretary, James Wilson, whose enthusiastic support enabled me a few days 
before his retirement, in March, 1913, to place in his hands the first copy 
received of Farmer’s Bulletin 513, ‘‘Fifty Common Birds of Farm and Orch- 
ard’’. I was doubly fortunate in interesting in my scheme Louis. Fuertes 
whose beautiful colored illustrations were chiefly responsible for the enthu- 
silastic welcome the booklet received. This, perhaps, was the most popular 
bulletin ever issued by the Department, and the first. and only edition, of 
200,000, was soon exhausted, without beginning to supply the demand. 
The little booklet having attracted the attention of Mr. Gilbert Grosvenor, 
Editor of the National Geographic Magazine, and, being impressed with. its 
educational value to the public, he sought and obtained permission of the 
Department to republish it in the magazine, under the title of ‘‘ Birds of Town 
and Country’. As the state of the department funds was adjudged not to war- 
rant further publications of the same character, Mr. Grosvenor undertook to 
publish the series I had contemplated, and happily was able to secure the co- 
operation of Mr, Fuertes. The result was the publication of two other bird 
papers, “‘Our American Game Birds’’, August, 1915; and ‘‘Friends of Our 
Forests’’, April, 1917. While the series by no means includes all our American 
birds, a considerable percentage of them is represented, and these the com- 
mon species most likely to come to the notice of the bird lover and to excite 
his interest. My dream was thus made a reality by Mr. Grosvenor who de- 
serves the thanks of all bird lovers for these popular bird treatises. 
_ As nearly 12 years of my life (1905-1916) were spent in the service of the 
Survey, a few words as to its chief work may form a fitting close to these 
pages. | 
The investigations of the habits of the English Sparrow, which marked 
the inception of the Survey, naturally soon expanded into a general study of 
the food of our birds through an examination of their stomach contents, which 
time has shown to be the only reliable method. Thanks to the work of the 
division of Economic ornithology we now know with certainty the nature of 
the food of several hundred of our native birds, which thus ean be accurately 
classified for legislative purposes, as beneficial, destructive, or both. In this 
work the United States has won an enviable position, since no other country 
has ever attempted such studies on anything like the same scale. 
