I have found that birds are very much like people. If you 
want to know them intimately, you must visit them in their 
own haunts, or teach them to come to you about your homes. 
You must study their problems and find out how much they — 
are like those of men and women. Books will help you to 
give names to the birds you see, and sometimes to deter- 
mine the truth of your decisions about the things they do, 
but, if you are after real knowledge about them, you must 
go where they live and get acquainted there with some of 
the commoner kinds. Begin by taking your next hike to 
one of the many places they love near our beautiful city. 
The whole Northwest is full of such places.” 
Well, here he was, after a night under the ates ima 
little clearing at the edge of an inlet of Puget Sound, and the 
day, which had been keeping in the shadow of night, was 
throwing up shafts of golden copper color into the sky. 
What would she show them? How very different the sights, 
and smells, and sounds were from those of the city! Mys- 
tery dwelt in every shadow, in every movement. All was 
still except for an occasional snap where a growing twig 
burst its jacket in the April warmth, or for a whisper from 4 
the leaves when the breeze swept through them. 
He could just begin to see strange, odd shapes, little 
more than lights and shades under the edges of the bushes, . 
- when one of the brown shadows shook itself, stepped out | 
into the light, ran a short distance, stood still, then jumped 
to a low branch, and he heard his first studied bird song. 
He had never known before that he liked music: like 
many other boys he had thought that only girls and some 
srown up people ever got any joy out of song, but this was 
different from anything he had ever dreamed. It made — 
- him think of a prayer he had been taught by his mother, © 
__ which he always repeated when he was in trouble. It sound- 
ed like some of the notes on the organ, when the choir sang 
on Sunday morning. How did it go? One-two-three-four, 
and then a running trill that he could not count. Was it 
2 
