A BOOK LIST
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.