BY THE WAYSJDE 
30 
spring for the gulls, for they will be 
back as soon as the ice breaks. Try 
to see one soar,—it- is a pretty sight. 
And just think, there are women in 
this country and elsewhere who would 
be willing to have these birds killed 
for the sake of being able to wear one 
of their wings on a hat! 
Suggestions to Teachers 
As was pointed out in the November 
issue, systematic ornithology is funda¬ 
mental to the study of bird habits, es¬ 
pecially such as pertain to distribution, 
habitat, and the like. It is also true 
that when some of these problems have 
been worked out that we can use them 
to teach classification. So we shall at¬ 
tempt to present in this and following 
numbers a scheme based as largely as 
possible on habits, habitat, color and 
form rather than on smaller details of 
structure and anatomy. This we do 
not with any idea of superseding sys¬ 
tems which include the latter charac¬ 
ters, but rather with the idea of en¬ 
abling beginners to more readily fam¬ 
iliarize themselves with the larger 
groups of birds. 
Before proceeding farther, we should 
get clearly in mind the limits of the 
proposed scheme. In the first place, 
while it is intended to cover Wisconsin 
birds only, it is needless to point out 
that this classification will apply 
equally well in regions of very nearly 
the same avifauna. Also, we want to 
emphasize the fact that only the more 
important groups will be included. 
Likewise no attempt whatsoever will 
he made to classify species or even 
genera,—this will be left to the indi¬ 
vidual to work out from his bird 
books. 
Bet us consider Sirst of all what a 
bird is. The definition of a bird is very 
simple; it is this: a bird is any animal 
that has feathers. If we want to char¬ 
acterize them further, we can truth¬ 
fully say that birds are vertebrates; 
are warm-blooded; have the hind pair 
of limbs adapted to walking, swim¬ 
ming, perching, and the like; usually 
have wings; and so we might name 
many more characteristics of the 
group. 
With this brief sketch of the struc¬ 
ture of birds, let us pass on to a con¬ 
sideration of their habitats and activ¬ 
ities. If you will mentally review the 
birds you know you will find that each 
one has a more or less definite set of 
surroundings among which it is found. 
Correlated with these surroundings 
are certain characteristics which en¬ 
able the bird to live there. For exam¬ 
ple: the chicken which lives on the 
ground has strong legs and toes which 
it uses to scratch for food; the wood¬ 
pecker has strong claws and a stout 
bill which can cling to bark and drill 
into wood. This is what may be called 
the correspondence of adaptation and 
habitat. Hence we may use a bird’s 
habits and habitat as a basis for clas¬ 
sification. 
The larger divisions of the following 
scheme of classification are based on 
differences in habitat. Tho birds were 
original entirely terrestrial, as is shown 
by the fact that all return to land to 
breed, many have secondarily changed 
their habitat. Thus we speak of aquatic 
birds, marsh birds, and land birds; it 
would be more correct, however, to call 
them water loving birds, marsh loving 
birds, and land loving birds. Altho 
we could subdivide still further, it is 
considered expedient to use only these 
