PREFACE 
Ip all his lessons were as joyful as learn- 
ing to know the birds in ^the fields and woods, 
there would be no 
“ ... whining Schoole-boy with his Satchell 
And shining morning face creeping like Snaile 
Unwillingly to schoole.” 
Long before his nine o’clock headache ap- 
pears, lessons have begun. Nature herself is 
the teacher who rouses him from his bed with 
an outburst of song under the window and sets 
his sleepy brain to wondering whether it was a 
robin’s clear, ringing call that startled him from 
his dreams, or the chipping sparrow’s wiry 
tremulo, or the gushing little wren’s tripping 
cadenza. Interest in the birds trains the ear 
quite unconsciously. A keen, intelligent listener 
is rare, even among grown-ups, but a child who 
is becoming acquainted with the birds about 
him hears every sound and puzzles out its 
meaning with a cleverness that amazes those 
with ears who hear not. He responds to the 
first alarm note from the nesting blue birds in 
the orchard and dashes out of the house to 
chase away a prowling cat. He knows from 
V 
