For getting acquainted with birds, we no more need books than we need books for getting acquainted with people. One bird, if rightly known,—as with one person understood,—will teach us more than we can learn by reading. But since no one has time to learn for himself more than a few things about many birds, or many things about a few birds, it is pleasant and companionable and helpful to have even a second-hand share in what other people have learned. For myself, I like to watch both the bird in the bush through my own eyes and the bird in the book through the eyes of some other observer. So it seems but fair to share the names of books that have interested me in one way or another during the preparation of my own. If it seems to anyone a short list, I can but say that I do not know all the good books about birds, and therefore many (and perhaps some of the best) have been omitted. If it seems to anyone a long list, I would suggest that, if it contains more than you may find in your public library, or more than you care to put on your own shelves, or more than can be secured for the school library, the list may be helpful for selection—perhaps some of them will be where you can find and use them. Certain of them, as their titles indicate, are devoted exclusively to birds; and others include other outdoor things as well—as happens many a time when we start out on a bird-quest of our own, and find other treasures, too, in plenty.

If I could have but two of the books on the list, they would be "The Story of Opal," the nature-word of a child who well may lead us, and "Handbook of Nature-Study," the nature-word of a wise teacher of teachers.

BOOKS, BULLETINS, AND LEAFLETS

American Birds, Studied and Photographed from Life. Lovell Finley. Charles Scribner's Sons.

Attracting Birds about the Home. Bulletin No. 1: The National Association of Audubon Societies.

Bird, The. C. William Beebe. Henry Holt and Company

Bird Book. Fannie Hardy Eckstorm. D. C. Heath & Co.

Bird Houses and How to Build Them. Ned Dearborn. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Farmer's Bulletin 609.

Bird Migration. Wells W. Cooke. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Bulletin 185.

Bird Neighbors. Neltje Blanchan. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Bird Studies with a Camera. Frank M. Chapman. D. Appleton & Co.

Bird Study Book. T. Gilbert Pearson. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Birds in their Relation to Man. Clarence M. Weed and Ned Dearborn. J. B. Lippincott Co.

Birds of Maine. Ora Willis Knight.

Birds of New York. Elon Howard Eaton. Memoir 12; N.Y. State Museum.

(The 106 colored plates by Louis Agassiz Fuertes can be secured separately.)

Birds of Ohio. William Leon Dawson. The Wheaton Publishing Co.

Birds of Village and Field. Florence A. Merriam. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Birds of the United States, East of the Rocky Mountains. Austin C. Apgar. American Book Company.

Burgess Bird Book for Children. Thornton W. Burgess. Little, Brown & Co.

By-Ways and Bird Notes. Maurice Thompson. United States Book Co.

Chronology and Index of the More Important Events in American Game Protection, 1776-1911. T. S. Palmer. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Biological Survey Bulletin 41.

Common Birds of Town and Country. National Geographic Society.

Conservation Reader. Harold W. Fairbanks. World Book Co.

Crow, The, and its Relation to Man. E. R. Kalmbach. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Bulletin 621.

Educational Leaflets of The National Association of Audubon Societies.

More than one hundred of these have been issued, each giving an illustrated account of a bird. (These are for sale at a few cents each, and a list may be obtained upon application to the National Association.)

Everyday Adventures. Samuel Scoville, Jr. The Atlantic Monthly Press.

Fall of the Year, The. Dallas Lore Sharp. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Federal Protection of Migratory Birds. George A. Lawyer. Separate from Yearbook of the Dept. of Agriculture, 1918, No. 785.

Food of Some Well-Known Birds of Forest, Farm, and Garden. F. E. L. Beal and W. L. McAtee. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Farmers' Bulletin 506.

Game Laws for 1920. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture; Farmers' Bulletin 1138.

Gray Lady and the Birds. Mabel Osgood Wright. The Macmillan Co.

Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America. Frank M. Chapman. D. Appleton & Co.

Handbook of Birds of Western United States. Florence M. Bailey. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Handbook of Nature-Study. Anna Botsford Comstock. Comstock Publishing Co.

Hardenbergh's Bird Playmates. Charles Scribner's Sons. Two sets: Land Birds and Water Birds. (Two large scenic backgrounds in color, with colored birds that can be slipped into place to complete the picture; for use during bird lessons, as a record of birds seen by the children, etc.)

History of North American Birds. S. F. Baird, T. M. Brewer, and R. Ridgway. Three volumes. Little, Brown & Co.

Life Histories of North American Diving Birds. Arthur Cleveland Bent. U.S. National Museum Bulletin 107.

Michigan Bird Life. Walter Bradford Barrows. Michigan Agricultural College.

Mother Nature's Children. Allen Walton Gould. Ginn & Co.

My Pets. Marshall Saunders. The Griffith and Rowland Press.

Natural History of the Farm. James G. Needham. The Comstock Publishing Co.

Nature Sketches in Temperate America. Joseph Lane Hancock. A. C. McClurg Co.

Nature Songs and Stories. Katherine Creighton. The Comstock Publishing Co.

Nestlings of Forest and Marsh. Irene Grosvenor Wheelock. Atkinson, Mentzer, and Grover.

Our Backdoor Neighbors. Frank C. Pellett. The Abingdon Press.

Our Birds and their Nestlings. Margaret Coulson Walker. American Book Co.

Our Greatest Travelers. Wells W. Cooke. (Reprinted in Common Birds of Town and Country.)

Outdoor Studies. James G. Needham. American Book Co.

Passenger Pigeon, The. W. B. Mershon. The Outing Publishing Co.

Primer of Bird-Study. Ernest Ingersoll. The National Association of Audubon Societies.

Propagation of Wild-Duck Foods. W. L. McAtee. U.S. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 465.

Sharp Eyes. William Hamilton Gibson. Harper and Brothers.

Short Cuts and By-Paths. Horace Lunt. D. Lothrop Co.

Some Common Game, Aquatic, and Rapacious Birds in Relation to Man. W. L. McAtee and F. E. L. Beal. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture; Farmers' Bulletin 497.

Spring of the Year, The. Dallas Lore Sharp. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Stories of Bird Life. T. Gilbert Pearson. B. F. Johnson Publishing Co.

Story of Opal, The. Opal Whiteley. G. P. Putnam's Sons. (The Journal of a child, who watched the comings and the goings of the little wood-folk and waved greetings to the plant-bush-folk, and who danced when the wind did play the harps in the forest—this being "a very wonderful world to live in.")

Summer. Dallas Lore Sharp. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Tales from Birdland. T. Gilbert Pearson. Doubleday, Page & Co.

Travels of Birds. Frank M. Chapman. D. Appleton and Co.

Useful Birds and their Protection. Edward H. Forbush. Massachusetts Board of Agriculture.

Wild Life Conservation. William T. Hornaday. Yale University Press.

Winter. Dallas Lore Sharp. Houghton Mifflin Co.

Wit of the Wild. Ernest Ingersoll. Dodd, Mead & Co.

PERIODICALS

Bird-Lore. Official Organ of the Audubon Societies. D. Appleton & Co.

Conservationist, The. New York State Conservation Commission, Albany.

Guide to Nature, The. The Agassiz Association, Arcadia, Sound Beach, Conn.

Natural History. Journal of the American Museum of Natural History.

Nature-Study Review. Official Organ of the American Nature-Study Society, Ithaca, New York.