A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS 
541 
en ^ een S r ^at orders of the bird world. These two last may seem 
cu t and useless to those who only seek to know the bird’s everyday 
name, but in the end it will help to keep the name in the memory to 
know the kinship of families as well. 
There are many little points of comparison that cannot be seen 
unless the dead bird is held in the hand, and then only a Wise Man, 
perhaps, would be able to point it out. It is with the living bird, on the 
wing or in its nest in the bushes, that we are concerned; not with the 
poor little dead thing with its limp neck and bloody, rumpled feathers. 
We should not learn enough from such a bird to in any way make 
up for taking its life; it would be both wasteful and against the law. 
So we must be content to believe what the Wise Men say, who must 
study the dead birds in order to preserve and keep them in public mu- 
seums, that they may teach the world how wonderful a thing bird life 
is, and show us that we must do all we can to protect it. Therefore the 
descriptions of these one hundred Connecticut birds, which every little 
girl and boy living outside a large town will have a chance to see at 
some time during the year, are given of those points that would be 
likely to attract the attention at some little distance. 
One hundred birds may seem a very large number at first, and yet 
it is only about a tenth of all the wonderful birds to be found in North 
America. At the same time these one hundred birds comprise the most 
conspicuous and interesting average that it is reasonable to expect to 
identify in a State having both shore front and river valley, as well as 
hill country of considerable altitude. 
The birds thus selected are listed in the order of families for refer- 
ence, but in the simple descriptions by which it is hoped to aid the chil- 
dren in naming them and become interested in their habits the birds 
are grouped according to the seasons of the school year when they are 
likely to be most observed. 
