In the "First Book of Birds" I told you about the common life of a bird; what sort of a home he has, and how he is taken care of when little; then how he lives when grown up; what he eats; where he sleeps; and something about how he is made.

In this book, I want to help you a step further on in your study of birds. I shall tell you something about particular birds, about the families they belong to, and the different ways in which they live.

To begin with: What is a bird family? In life, a bird family is exactly like a human family. It consists of father, mother, and children. But in the books, a family means quite another thing.

Men who study the Science of Birds, or Ornithology, have placed the birds in groups which they call families, to make it easier to find out about them, and write about them. This way of arranging them in books is called classification—or forming them into classes.

Birds are classified, not by the way they look, but by the way they are made, or their structure, and this is found out by the study of Scientific Ornithology. Birds may look a good deal alike, and act alike, and yet be differently made.

There is first the grand class Aves, which includes all creatures who wear feathers. This class is divided into orders.

Orders are made by putting together a large number of birds who are alike in one thing. For instance, all birds who have feet made to clasp a perch, and so are perchers, are put in an order together.

But many birds have feet for perching who are very different in other ways. So orders are divided into families, which I shall tell you about in this book.

In each family I shall tell you about one or more of the best known, or the ones you are most likely to see, and that will help you to know the rest of the family when you begin to study birds out of doors, and use the manual to learn the names.

I shall often speak of what has been found out about the food of birds, and I want to tell you here, once for all, how it was done, so that you may understand just what I mean when I speak of the work of the Department of Agriculture. The Government of the United States has in Washington a department with a head and many men under him, whose business it is to take charge of everything concerning agriculture, that is, farming, fruit-growing, etc. This is called the Department of Agriculture.

Farmers and fruit-growers made so much complaint of the damage done to crops by birds, that this department determined to find out just what birds do eat. The only way it could be done was by having the birds killed and seeing what food was in their stomachs, for it is almost impossible to tell by watching them. To know positively which birds do harm by eating more grain or fruit than insects, and which do good by eating more insects, would save the lives of many thousands. So the killing of those they studied was useful to the whole race.

When they wanted to find out what crows eat, they had crows killed all over the country—hundreds of them—and the stomachs, with the food in, sent to them in Washington. Then they went to work and examined every one. They could tell by the shells of seeds and the hard parts of insects, and bones and hair of mice, etc., just what had been eaten. And the contents of every stomach was written down and preserved in a book. Thus, you see, they could tell what crows were in the habit of feeding upon.

They did this with many other birds who are said to do harm,—hawks, owls, blackbirds, kingbirds, and others. That is how we come to know what birds eat, and can tell whether they do harm or good. There can be no mistake in this way of knowing, and so what comes from this department may be relied upon as true.

I want this little book to help the bird-lovers in the South and West of our big country, as well as in the East; and so, in each Family, I shall try to tell about a bird who may be seen in each part. A good many of our birds are found both East and West, with slight differences, but some that are in one part are not in the other.