CO-OPERATIVE EFFORT IN BIRD STUDY 
ARTHUR A. OSBORNE 
A thorough knowledge of the bird life of any locality can 
rarely be had through the activities of any one person work¬ 
ing alone, and is best attained through the combined efforts of 
many individuals working for the common cause. 
It requires time, patience, good judgment and a genuine 
love for the work to review a mass of data gathered from 
many sources, to eliminate unessentials, to properly arrange 
and digest the material facts, and finally to write as complete 
a story as possible of the bird life of any community. 
So far as the bird-life of Essex County, — particularly the 
vicinity of Salem and Lynn — is concerned, our Club has 
already done much to further the co-operative spirit in bird 
study, for it has finally brought together, for the purpose of 
continuous effort, a body of men, who for many years previous 
to our Club’s existence, had pursued the study of birds more 
or less alone, or at the most, in small groups, and probably 
with but little systematic effort toward a definite goal. 
It is manifestly impossible for most of us to keep up the 
study of ornithology as systematically and as thoroughly as 
we might wish; but, making allowances for other demands 
upon our time, I have often wondered if we could not co-operate 
in our bird work even, more than heretofore, with correspond¬ 
ingly more effective results. 
Let me illustrate, as I see it, how even a small group of 
enthusiasts working together in my own city might have 
accumulated data, which, combined, would have been far 
more valuable than any of my notes alone. 
Two winters ago I first found Starlings near Peabody Square, 
and frequently saw these birds fly into and from the belfry 
of the Universalist Church. Last winter, for the first time, 
I often found this species about the steeple of the Methodist 
Church, farther away from the Square, and near my own 
home. This fall I have again seen these birds several times 
near home. In what other parts of Peabody do they con- 
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