BOOKS
Many excellent standard works upon birds are available. When I was a youngster I wore out three volumes of Dr. Frank M. Chapman’s Bird-Life; I devoured the reading matter, cut up the pictures, and studied the technique of the artist who had painted them. By the time I had destroyed the third copy of this helpful volume, I knew the birds treated there pretty well. Chapman’s Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America is a desk-side companion today. The little pocket volumes called Bird Guides, by C. A. Reed, are helpful; but the color-plates in them have been used so many times that they are worn out, with the result that the colors are often very misleading. Dr. B. H. Warren’s volumes on the Birds of Pennsylvania, published in 1888 and 1890, contain much of value and interest, including a series of colored pictures which always elicit praise. These volumes, while interesting historically, do not meet the needs of the Pennsylvania bird student today, in the light of present knowledge. The excellent state publications Birds of New York (Eaton) and Birds of Massachusetts (Forbush), are magnificently illustrated and are well worth possessing; they treat of many of the species found in Pennsylvania. Books on general aspects of ornithology which you will find useful are: Wetmore’s The Migrations of Birds, Ball’s Bird Biographies, Blanchan’s Bird Neighbors and Birds That Hunt and Are Hunted, Chapman’s What Bird is That?, Coues’ Key to North American Birds, the National Geographic Society’s Book of Birds, and Forbush’s Useful Birds and Their Protection.