10 
FIELD OBNITHOLOGY. 
how beautiful she is ! I would have you to know and love her ; for fairer mistress never 
swayed the heart of man. Aim high ! — press on, and leave the half-way house of mere col- 
lectorship far behind in your pursuit of a delightful study, nor fancy the closet its goal. 
Birds may be sought anywhere, at any time ; they should be sought everywhere, at 
all times. Some come about your doorstep to tell their stories unasked. Others spring up 
before you as you stroll in the field, like the flowers that enticed the feet of Proserpine. Birds 
flit by as you measure the tired roadside, lending a tithe of their life to quicken your dusty 
steps. They disport overhead at hide-and-seek with the foliage as you loiter in the shade of 
the forest, and their music now answers the sigh of the tree-tops, now ripples an echo to the 
voice of the brook. But you will not always so pluck a thornless rose. Birds hedge them- 
selves about with a bristling girdle of brier and bramble you cannot break ; they build their 
tiny castles in the air surrounded by impassable moats, and the drawbridges are never down. 
They crown the mountain-top you may lose your breath to climb ) they sprinkle the desert 
where your parched lips may find no cooling draught ; they fleck the snow-wreath when the 
nipping blast may make you turn your back ; they breathe unharmed the pestilent vapors of 
the swamp that mean disease, if not death, for you ; they outride the storm at sea that sends 
strong men to their last account. Where now will you look for birds ? 
And yet, as skilled labor is always most productive, so expert search yields more than 
random or blundering pursuit. Imprimis ; The more varied the face of a country, the more 
varied its birds. A place all plain, all marsh, all woodland, yields its particular, set of birds, 
perhaps in profusion : but the kinds will be limited in number. It is of first importance to 
remember this, when you are so fortunate as to have choice of a collecting-ground ; and it wiU 
guide your steps aright in a day's walk anywhere, for it will make you leave covert for open, 
wet for dry, higli for low and back again. Well-watered country is more fruitful of bird-life 
than desert or even prairie ; warm regions are more productive thon cold ones. As a rule, 
variety and abundance of birds are in direct ratio to diversity and luxuriance of vegetation. 
Your most valuable as well as largest bags may be made in the "regions most favored botani- 
cally, up to the point where exuberance of plant-growth mechanically opposes your operations. 
Search for particular Birds can only be well directed, of course, by a knowledge of 
their special haunts and habits, and is one of the mysteries of wood-craft only solved by long 
experience and close observation. Here is where the true naturalist bears himself with con- 
scious pride and strength, winning laurels that become him, and do honor to his calling. 
Where to find game (''game" is anything that vulgar people do not ridicule you for shooting) 
of all the kinds we have in this country has been so often and so minutely detailed in sporting- 
works that it need not be here enlarged upon, especially since, being the best known, it is the 
least valuable of ornithological material. Most large or otherwise conspicuous birds have very 
special haunts that may be soon learned; and as a rule such rank next after game in ornitho- 
logical disesteem. Birds of prey are an exception to these statements; they range everywhere, 
and most of them are worth securing. Hawks will unwittingly fly in your way oftener than 
they will allow you to approach them when perched : be ready for them. Owls will be 
startled out of their retreats in thick bushes, dense foliage, and hollow trees, in the daytime j 
if hunting them at night, good aim in the dark may be taken by rubbing a Avet lucifer match 
on the sight of the gun, causing a momentary glimmer. Large and small waders are to be 
found by any water's edge, in open marshes, and often on dry plains ; the herons more particu- 
larly in heavy bogs and dense swamps. Under cover, waders are oftenest approached by 
stealth ; in the open, by strategy; but most of the smaller kinds require the exercise of no special 
precautions. Swimming birds, aside from water-fowl (as the ''game" kinds are called), are gen- 
erally shot from a boat, as they fly past ; but at their breeding places many kinds that congre- 
