Identifier: birdcraftfield00wrig (find matches)
Title: Birdcraft : a field book of two hundred song, game, and water birds
Year: 1897 (1890s)
Authors: Wright, Mabel Osgood, 1859-1934 Fuertes, Louis Agassiz, 1874-1927
Subjects: Birds -- United States
Publisher: New York : Macmillan Co.
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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ere is nosubstitute for intelligent patience. A mere dogged persist-ency will not do for the study of the living bird, and it isto the living bird in his love-songs, his house-building, hishaunts, and his migrations, that I would lead you. Thegun that silences the bird voice, and the looting of nests,should be left to the practised hand of science; you haveno excuse for taking life, whether actual or embryonic, as 1 Boston: Little, Brown & Co.XV TO THE READER. your very ignorance will cause useless slaughter, and theegg-collecting fever of the average boy savours more of thegreed of possession than of ornithological ardour. Finally, whoever you are who read these pages, spare forme a little of your hoard of the same patience with whichyou are to study the birds, if, while striving to lead youthrough the wood-path, I often stumble or retrace my steps. M. 0. W. XVI INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS. THE SPEING SONG. THE BUILDING OF THE NEST. THE WATER-BIEDS. BIEDS OF AUTUMN AND WINTER. PLATE 1.
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ME ADO WL ARK.Length, 10.75 inches. (See page 169.) INTKODUCTORT CHAPTERS. THE SPRING SONG. What tidings hath the Swallow heardThat bids her leave the lands of summer For woods and fields where April yieldsBleak welcome to the blithe newcomer ?—Bourdillow. The trees are leafless, and there are snow patches in nooksand corners; the air is laden with chilly gusts, but at noon alittle softness creeps into it; the days, though gray, holdtwelve hours of light, and the vernal equinox is at hand. Come to the window, my friend, you who are going tospend some days, weeks, or months upon the bird-quest.You say that you see nothing but the bare trees, not eventhe sun making dust and the grass growing green, likesister Anne in the fairy tale. Open your window, or betterstill, go into the porch, for a procession is soon to pass, andyou must hear the music. Listen! on the branch of the oakwhere the leaves still cling is the bugler, the Song Sparrow,calling through the silence, They come! They com

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