VOLUME III.
CHICAGO.
Nature Study Publishing Company.
copyright, 1897
by
Nature Study Publishing Co.
chicago.
With the January number of Birds, we enter upon a new year with thesatisfaction of having pleased our readers, as well as rendered an actual serviceto the cause of education, ornithological literature, and art. Among thehundreds of testimonials from competent judges, (many of them scientists),which we have received, we will permit ourselves the use of one only, asexemplifying the excellence which we have sought to attain and the rightfulclaim which we may make for the future. The writer says: “I find Birdsan everlasting source of pleasure to the children, not less than to myself. Ihave one of the few almost absolutely fresh copies of ‘Audubon’s Birds,’ forwhich I have refused $3,000, besides later works, and I will say that thepictures of birds given in your magazine are infinitely more true to life, andmore pleasing, everyway, than any of those presented in either work. Theother day I compared some of your pictures with the birds mounted by myself,notably a Wood-duck and a Wood-cock, and every marking co-incided. Thephotographs might have been taken from my own specimens, so accuratelywere they delineated, attesting the truth of your work.”
Some of our subscribers, unaware of the prodigality with which nature hasscattered birds throughout the world, have asked whether the supply ofspecimens may not soon be exhausted. Our answer is, that there are manythousands of rare and attractive birds, all of them interesting for study, fromwhich, for years to come, we might select many of the loveliest forms andrichest plumage. Of North American birds alone there are more than twelvehundred species.
The success of Birds is due to its superior color illustrations and theunique treatment of the text. Popular and yet scientific, it is interesting toold and young alike.
The classification and nomenclature followed are those adopted by theAmerican Ornithological Union in 1895.
Nature Study Publishing Company.
Under the big nursery table
Are Sue, Don, Harold, and Mabel,
All playing, with joy and delight,
That pigeons they are, dressed in white.
Don’t you hear their gentle “coo, coo”?
Ah, now they fly out in full view!
And over the meadow they go—
’Tis their own dear nursery, you know—
Where, quick to the tops of the trees
They fly, with lightness and ease;
There each birdie is glad to be
Perched high upon a big chair-tree.
But to their home in swiftest flight
They haste, ere day has changed to night;