E-text prepared by Al Haines
OUR BIRD
COMRADES
By
LEANDER S. KEYSER
Author of "Birddom," "In Bird Land,"
and "Birds of the Rockies," etc.
RAND, McNALLY & COMPANY
Chicago New York London
Copyright, 1907
BY RAND, McNALLY & Co.
The Rand-McNally Press
Chicago
To
ALL WHO LOVE THE BIRDS FOR THEIR
OWN SAKES,
who desire to cultivate comradeship with them in books
and in the field, and who will study them
with the glass and without the gun.
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
To know the birds intimately, to interpret their lives in all theirvaried conditions, one must get close to them. For the purpose ofaccomplishing this object the author of this volume has gone to theirhaunts day after day and watched them persistently at not a little costof time, effort, and money. While the limits of a single volume do notpermit him to present all of his observations, it is hoped that thosehere offered will be satisfactory as far as they go, and that thereader will be able to glean from these pages some new as well asinteresting facts relative to bird life.
The writer has had another purpose in view in preparing this book: Hewishes to inspire others, especially the young, to use their eyes andears in the study of the enchanting volume of Nature. This object, hebelieves, will be best accomplished by furnishing concrete examples ofwhat may be achieved by earnest research. For purposes of stimulus anounce of example is worth a pound of precept. If another sees you andme doing a thing joyfully, earnestly, we need scarcely say to him, "Gothou and do likewise."
There is not much in the book that is technical, yet it aims atscientific accuracy in all of its statements, no bird being describedwhose status in the avian system has not been determined. If strangeexploits are sometimes recited, the author has simply to say that hehas been veracious in all of his statements, and that all the storiesare "true bird stories." The author modestly believes that it will notbe found uninteresting to nature lovers in general.
Much of the material inc