As shrines to burn earth's incense on,
The altar-fires of Heaven!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
BIRD-STUDY.
To be intimate with Nature is as important to the investigator as the ability to technically classify the things found therein.
In this connection we copy, by permission, the words of Olive Thorne Miller, from the "School Room Methods and Nature Study:"
"Recognizing a bird on sight or hearing, knowing his nest and eggs, when he arrives in the spring, and when he departs in the fall, does not by any means imply that one is acquainted with the bird himself. All these facts are easily acquired; they have been set down in the books these many years.
But whoso really desires to know the little being so beautifully enshrined; to see his home ways with his mate and little ones; to find out his personal habits; his likes and dislikes; his tastes; his disposition; in a word his personality, for him is something very different from book study. He must go into the field and observe for himself; for well as we may know our common birds by sight, glibly as we can explain their anatomy, give their scientific names, and their place in our classification, of their lives and habits we are in almost total ignorance.