n of human interest, bibliography.
We get an analysis of the panther's scream but it does not curdle the
blood.

{illust}

30. Birds and Wild Flowers

NEARLY EVERYBODY ENJOYS to an extent the singing of birds and the
colors of flowers; to the majority, however, the enjoyment is casual,
generalized, vague, in the same category as that derived from a short
spell of prattling by a healthy baby. Individuals who study birds and
native flora experience an almost daily refreshment of the spirit and
growth of the intellect. For them the world is an unending Garden of
Delight and a hundred-yard walk down a creek that runs through town
or pasture is an exploration. Hardly anything beyond good books, good
pictures and music, and good talk is so contributory to the enrichment
of life as a sympathetic knowledge of the birds, wild flowers, and other
native fauna and flora around us.

The books listed are dominantly scientific. Some include keys to
identification. Once a person has learned to use the key for identifying
botanical or ornithological species, he can spend the remainder of his
life adding to his stature.

BIRDS

BAILEY, FLORENCE MERRIAM. _Birds of New Mexico_, 1928. OP. Said by those
who know to be at the top of all state bird books. Much on habits.

BEDICHEK, ROY. _Adventures with a Texas Naturalist_ (1947) and
_Karankaway Country_ (1950), Doubleday, Garden City, N. Y. These are
books of essays on various aspects of nature, but nowhere else can one
find an equal amount of penetrating observation on chimney swifts, Inca
doves, swallows, golden eagles, mockingbirds, herons, prairie chickens,
whooping cranes, swifts, scissortails, and some other birds. As Bedichek
writes of them they become integrated with all life.

BRANDT, HERBERT. _Arizona and Its Bird Life_, Bird Research Foundation,
Cleveland, 1951. This beautiful, richly illustrated volume of 525 pages
lives up to its title; the birds belong to the Arizona country, and with
them we get pines, mesquites, cottonwoods, John Slaughter's ranch,
the northward-flowing San Pedro, and many other features of the land.
Herbert Brandt's _Texas Bird Adventures_, illustrated by George Miksch
Sutton (Cleveland, 1940), is more on the Big Bend country and ranch
country to the north than on birds, though birds are here.

DAWSON, WILLIAM LEON. _The Birds of California_, San Diego, etc.,
California, 1923. OP. Four magnificent volumes, full in illustrations,
spec