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Introductory — Part 1

IT has been suggested that a work on Bird Homes might do more harm than good, since it would add to the knowledge already possessed by the birds' human enemies. I think this surely a mistake; a near acquaintance with our feathered friends in their homes will surely give to the most careless such an interest in the birds and their daily lives, such a new sense of companionship with them and affection for them, that it can but work for their good. Yet it may be as well to say emphatically at the outset: Make your object the study of birds through their nests and eggs. Don't add a new terror to the many that already beset anxious little bird-mothers by disturbing them during the breeding season or taking their eggs for a so-called "collection." If you stop at this you will lose some of the choicest pleasures that fall to the lot of the nature lover.

So far as I know, this side of the birds' life has been comparatively neglected. There are plenty of scientific works on oology and nidification, and so on, but hardly anything that deals with the subject from what might be called the "human" side. If this book helps the ordinary unscientific person to get some closer glimpse of the birds in their roles as heads of a family; to study their wonderfully adapted nests and beautiful eggs as manifestations of that bird nature which is so charmingly varied and so endlessly interesting--if it does this in any measure at all I shall be more than satisfied.

Every one agrees that the study of birds should be fostered and developed. The first thing is to teach people to see, and very few of those who have not gone into the matter sympathetically realise how little of the visible world of nature they do see. In particular are there recompenses for the patient observer who devotes himself to the beauties of bird-life. There are but few, especially among boys, who are really capable of doing systematic collecting of eggs, and unless formed with the utmost care and system, a collection is of not the slightest value. On the other hand, every one can be taught to see, to study the birds in connection with their nests, eggs, and young.

Birds have so many natural enemies that our first impulse should be to protect them. It is a dark reflection on man that, with all his much-vaunted intelligence, he should do more toward the destruction of birds than all other causes combined. And he certainly is one of their most relentless foes.

If laws were made, for instance, forbidding the sale of bird-skins for millinery purposes, what a boon it would be to our feathered friends! Much has been written and published on the subject by that most excellent institution, the Audubon Society; but what little effect has it produced. Laws have been passed, though rather late in the day, prohibiting the killing of egrets in the South and of many varieties of the smaller birds in special States; but these laws are to a great extent disregarded, and there are no adequate means for their enforcement. The destruction of birds' nests is forbidden; yet there are endless "collections" made every season. How many boys--and men too--are there in every village who take every year large numbers of eggs which serve no purpose! Their only idea is to get "a lot of them," which are gathered together without notes or observation, or even identification. All sparrow-like nests found on the ground are said to belong to the "ground sparrow" or "grass sparrow," or some such ambiguous bird. When the nest is found and the eggs are taken the entire aim of this "collector" seems to be satisfied; the idea of making notes never even enters his head. If asked where some particular egg was taken, he replies vaguely: "I don't remember exactly, but I think it was in such a place, or perhaps some fellow gave it to me."

Thus it is that eggs are destroyed and with them the means of studying the birds during the most interesting period of their lives; for where a bird's nest is, there is its home in the strictest sense of the word. It is true that most birds are wanderers; they go south shortly after the young are fully grown, to return when the frost leaves the ground and the necessary supply of food can be obtained. But during the migration the bird is seldom resident for more than a few weeks in any one place; he is restless and only awaits the time when he may get back to his nesting place of the previous year. Here, where he sings his love-songs and sets up housekeeping, is surely his real home and habitation.