14 
INTRODUCTION 
MEANS OF ATTRACTING BIRDS 
To anyone interested in birds, the pleasure of having them about the 
house and garden, where they can be observed at leisure, is very great. A 
small garden patch can be made attractive to many species by proper 
methods. The effects of strict protection are well illustrated in some of 
the larger parks where the shyest waterfowl, finding there is nothing to fear 
from man, become almost as confiding as barnyard poultry. This is the 
case also with the smaller garden species. Next to freedom from disturb- 
ance by human inhabitants, protection from the domestic cat is necessary. 
The supplying of food in winter is also important. Shrubs carrying 
fruit, suet hung in trees, and grain, broken nuts, and small fragments of 
dried meat sheltered from the snow, rarely fail to attract birds in the winter. 
In summer, when natural supplies are plentiful, food seldom has to be 
supplied, though a row of fruiting sunflowers or the seed heads of many 
garden flowers well repay the trouble they may cost. A shallow pool of 
clean water is a never failing source of pleasure to nearly all the common 
garden birds. They both bathe in it and drink it, and on a hot day it is 
no uncommon sight to see several birds awaiting their turn to enjoy the 
grateful coolness. The simplest form of bird bath is a shallow pan, set 
well out in the open and away from cover as a protection from cats. In 
cities where the trees are well cared for and dead wood is promptly removed, 
and on the treeless prairies, certain species of birds are always hard pressed 
to find suitable nesting sites. There are at least half a dozen species, 
naturally nesting in hollow limbs, that readily come to bird boxes of various 
kinds, and a number of other birds can be occasionally induced to do so. 
Suitable boxes are described in some of the books listed on page 22. In 
many schools where manual training is taught the boys are encouraged 
to build bird houses. Scope is thus given to their natural inventive genius, 
and at the same time they become interested in the birds that occupy the 
houses. 
On the prairies nothing is more attractive to birds of many species 
than a tree plantation, which not only serves to shelter the crops but brings 
birds to assist in combating insect plagues and please us with their song 
and beauty. 
BIRD STUDY 
The study of birds can be approached from several angles. Far from 
the occasionally advanced idea that ornithology is a worked-out study, 
that we have learned all that is necessary to know about birds, there is 
still plenty of work to be done and in no branch of it have we even ap- 
proached finality. The aesthetic bird lover, of course, can never exhaust 
his personal interest in the subject and is continually finding new beauties 
and personal appeals. To him, the first observation of even a trite and 
well-known fact comes with all the pleasure and force of a new discovery 
and there is little fear of the subject ever growing commonplace. To those 
who are ambitious of advancing the world's knowledge, ornithology offers 
many opportunities. Rarely will the complete life-history of even a single 
species fail to repay intensive work. 
Our knowledge of bird distribution in Canada is still far from complete 
and there are vast areas in which it is based on assumption. Even some 
large and important political divisions, such as provinces, are without 
recent authoritative lists of their birds. In many cases nothing but 
