Excerpt from Bird-Lore, 1911, Vol. 13: An Illustrated Bi-Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Study and Protection of Birds

Then, too, there are added the different phases born of the seven ages of man, and the seventy times seven changes of mood and tempera ment. At first, birds were simply two-legged, feathered things, that sang more or less well, and would usually discover the ripe side of every straw berry and cherry at least half an hour before the human picker appeared on the scene. Spring and summer brought birds, how they lived in the absent interval one didn't know, and any sort of systematic aid in solving the feeding problem, other than shaking the table-cloth out of the win dow, did not trouble one. Neither did the matter of housing, to any prac tical extent. Bird-houses were mostly impossible vaudeville constructions, with many doors and little privacy within, and certain to be draughty.

Then came the want to know period, when birds were things to be listed, identified with deadly certainty upon insufficient evidence, and treated in the precise manner of the multiplication table. These were days of wonderful discoveries. When the Chat seen at a new angle was recorded as a Prothonotary Warbler, causing one's really scientific friend to smile indulgently and yawn, but quite politely, behind his hand.

Then a reasonable familiarity with the common birds settled over me, and their personalities became the prime factors. (not but what I shall always be hazy about certain Sparrows and fall-coated Warblers when seen in the bush.)

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