"Ninety cents," gasped Yan. Oh! if only he had known the ways of booksellers or the workings of cash discounts. For six weeks had he been barred this happy land—had suffered starvation; he had misappropriated funds, he had fractured his conscience and all to raise that ten cents—that unnecessary dime.
He read that book reverentially all the way home. It did not give him what he wanted, but that doubtless was his own fault. He pored over it, studied it, loved it, never doubting that now he had the key to all the wonders and mysteries of Nature. It was five years before he fully found out that the text was the most worthless trash ever foisted on a torpid public. Nevertheless, the book held some useful things; first, a list of the bird names; second, some thirty vile travesties of Audubon and Wilson's bird portraits.
These were the birds thus maligned:
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Duck Hawk Sparrow Hawk White-headed Eagle [37] Great Horned Owl Snowy Owl Red-headed Woodpecker Golden-winged Woodpecker Barn-swallow Whip-poor-will Night Hawk Belted Kingfisher Kingbird Woodthrush Catbird White-bellied Nuthatch Brown Creeper Bohemian Chatterer Great Northern Shrike Shore Lark |
Rose-breasted Grosbeak Bobolink Meadow Lark Bluejay Ruffed Grouse Great Blue Heron Bittern Wilson's Snipe Long-biller Curlew Purple Gallinule Canada Goose Wood Duck Hooded Merganser Double-crested Cormorant Arctic Tern Great Northern Diver Stormy Petrel Arctic Puffin Black Guillemot |
But badly as they were presented, the pictures were yet information, and were entered in his memory as lasting accessions to his store of truth about the Wild Things.
Of course, he already knew some few birds whose names are familiar to every schoolboy: the Robin, Bluebird, Kingbird, Wild Canary, Woodpecker, Barn-swallow, Wren, Chickadee, Wild Pigeon, Humming-bird, Pewee, so that his list was steadily increased.