the author has felt to the very
fine bird manuals before the public is that they contain minute
directions for the preparation of dead birds for purposes of mounting
and preservation, and also for the collection and preservation of
birds' eggs. If this were to cause the school children of the country
to set out to make collections of birds and of eggs in order to study
them, the study would better be omitted. Nothing more deadly than an
opera glass should be aimed at a bird for a generation. The utility
of a collection is not so great; a dead bird's plumage is not as
beautiful as in life, and he loses every attitude and movement which
makes him an individual. A corpse is not a bird. Persons who can
identify birds by one glimpse of them through the trees, or by a few
notes of their song, or by their flight are frequently at a loss to
identify the same birds when they are dead, unless they are familiar
with the dead birds.

The only collection the children should be encouraged to make is that
of nests after the birds are through with them; and especially of
nests with whose family history they are acquainted. These may be
brought into the schoolroom. In one of our school yards the children
discovered a pair of red-eyed vireos building. The nest was so
situated that it could be seen from one of the upper schoolroom
windows. After the young had left, the nest was taken down, and to the
pleasure which the children had enjoyed in watching its builders and
their family was added another. They found in the bottom of the nest
little bits of the papers they had used in school with their letters
and figures upon them.

VI

DIRECTIONS FOR WRITTEN WORK

Have the children give anecdotes about birds that they have observed.
Let them describe actions which they saw them perform, paying
particular attention to the ways of birds in eating. For example,
sparrows were observed carrying hard crusts of bread to a little pool
of water, formed in a dent in a tin roof, to soften before attempting
to eat them. Day after day crusts were put out, and the water was
renewed.

_Written descriptions of birds feeding their young._--Young birds live
entirely upon insect life. It has been computed that a bird during the
first few weeks of its life consumes nearly one and one half times its
weight of insects daily. Note the amazing amount of insect life that
will be destroyed by the birds of a neighborhood in a single season.
Give, if pos