able to gain the summit had it not been for my tough little wild-cherry cane, upon which I could lean when almost exhausted, which supported my faltering steps, and which happily never grew weary. Two years later it helped me to scale a number of snow-capped mountains, among them Grays Peak and Peak Number Eight of the Ten Mile Range. Indeed, my little cane was of so much service to me that I came to look upon it as a personal friend that cared almost as much for me as I did for it. It pushed aside thorny bushes and nettlesome weeds when I was looking for nests, thus saving my hands many a painful wound. And more than one serpent, including the rattlesnake, has had his head crushed or his spine broken by sturdy blows from my little wild-cherry cane. I should add that it had a hooked handle, so that I could hang it on the strap of my haversack when I needed both hands.

In the beginning of your observations you will find the work of identifying the birds a rare and exciting pleasure; then, after you have named all the species in your neighborhood, it will be no less delightful to study their interesting ways, or to extend your researches to other fields. And if at any time you observe some odd bits of bird behavior which you think will be news to the many bird lovers the world over, why should you not report them to one of the bird magazines, so that others may share the pleasures of your discoveries? An admirer of feathered folk should not be selfish; indeed, I do not see how he can be.

It simply remains to be said that this volume is an illustration of the method of bird study just indicated. In the first place, I shall show, in a few chapters, how the student goes about his work of identifying species and making new bird friends; then will follow a number of monographs indicating how much may be learned about the life histories of several interesting species; next there will be a miscellaneous collection of incidents of bird life, showing how many odds and ends the industrious and observing rambler may gather by the way; and, finally, the book will conclude with four somewhat technical chapters on bird education, bird music, bird flight, and bird feet, which I hope will prove interesting as well as instructive.

MAKING NEW FRIENDS

A friend once told me of a letter he had received from a correspondent who is an enthusiastic botanist. The writer, having just returned from an excursion in which he found a flower that was new to him, gave vent to his feelings of exultation by exclaiming, "Oh, the joy! the joy!" A like experience comes to the bird lover when he makes a new acquaintance in the feathered domain, no matter how many other observers may have seen and studied the species. "A bird that is new to me is to all intents and purposes a new bird," is his self-complacent mode of reasoning, though it may not be distinguished for its logic.

After studying the birds in Ohio and Indiana for a good many years, I moved to eastern Kansas, where I lived for five and a half years. My rambles were by no means confined to the wooded bluffs and hollows that bound the Missouri River on the west, for I also made excursions out upon the prairies of Kansas, over into the state of Missouri, and down into Oklahoma; and everywhere I carried my field glass with me and kept both eyes intent on the birds. You would expect an enthusiast in the pursuit of bird lore to do nothing else. What a pleasure it was to ramble about in new fields and make acquaintance with new bird friends! There is not a very marked difference between the avifauna of eastern Kansas and Ohio, and yet there are some birds found in the former state that are not met with in the latter—enough to keep the observer on the tiptoe of expectancy for several months.

One of my new acquaintances was a little bird which is known as the clay-colored sparrow. It belongs to the same genus (Spizella) as the chipping and field sparrows which are so well known in the East; but it has an individuality of its own, and is not merely a copy. I stumbled upon it while pursuing my explorations near Peabody, far out on the level prairie, where the species was abundant during the season of migration. As I was sauntering along a road, a peculiar croaking little trill greeted me from the hedge, sounding very much like the rasping call of certain kinds of grasshoppers when they are suddenly startled and take to wing. But no insect had ever emitted quite such a sound in my hearing. This could not be an insect. It was worth while to look and make sure of the identity of the odd musician.

After some difficulty, I fixed my glass upon a number of little sparrows about the size of the chippies. They bore a close resemblance to that species too, save that the crown-piece and the general tone of the back were decidedly darker, while the under parts were a good deal whiter. The clear, ash-colored cervical interval between the crown and the back and the distinct brown loral and auricular space told me plainly who the little charmers were. Not at the moment, however, for the birds were new to me, and I had to wait until I could consult my manual before I was able to decide that they were the clay-colored sparrows.

Their song is an odd vocal performance—a low, croaking trill, preceded by a few longer notes, all delivered in the same key. It is, in fact, a contralto solo divided into brief stanzas, and easily might be mistaken for the grating buzz of an insect, especially if heard at a distance of a few rods. It possesses little or no musical quality, and is perhaps the most curious style of bird minstrelsy with which I am acquainted. In comparison the chippie's trill sounds loud and clear and bell-like, with a distinctly melodious quality of tone. The song of the little clay-colored sparrow is also marked by a kind of drawl, giving one the impression that the bird is just a little too lazy to exert himself; yet when you get him in the field of your glass and see him throw back his head, expand his throat and chest, and open his mandibles as wide as he can, you quickly decide that he is not the apathetic creature his desultory song would lead you to infer. It really is laughable, and almost pathetic, too, to note how much energy he expends in the production of his poor little aria.

Indeed, not in the least sluggish is the blood flowing in the veins of Spizella pallida, for he is a vivacious little body, flitting about actively in the hedges and bushes, and sometimes mounting into the trees, chanting his little alto strain all the while, as if his life depended upon it. He is one of the comparatively few birds who is lavish of his song in migration.

Unlike the familiar chippie, he does not usually find a perch in plain sight, from which to rehearse his song, but keeps himself well hidden in the bushes or trees, darting into a hiding place as soon as he thinks himself discovered. The shy little imp prefers to put a screen of foliage or twigs between himself and the observer. Might his motto be, "Little birds should be heard and not seen"? I had quite a time making sure of him, but, as a pleasant compensation, when his identity was once settled, I could not well have mistaken him for another species, for he is a bird of real distinction.

My study of the clay-colored sparrows was restricted to their habits in migration, at which time they move about in more or less compact little flocks, gathering seeds and chanting their monotonous trills. While I first found these sparrows near Peabody, they were also fairly common, a few days later, in northeastern Kansas, about a mile back from the Missouri River, where their low alto strains formed a kind of gray background for the high-pitched trills of the Harris