Excerpt from Bird Guide: Water Birds, Game Birds and Birds of Prey East of the Rockies While strolling through a piece of woodland, or perhaps along the marsh or seashore, we see a bird, a strange bird, - one we never saw before. Instantly, our curiosity is aroused, and the question arises, What is it? There is the bird! How can we find out whatkind it is? The Ornithologist'of a few years ago had but one course open to him, that is to shoot the bird, take it home, then pore through pages of descriptions until one was found to correspond withthe specimen. Obviously, such methods cannot be pursued today, both humane and economical reasons prohibiting. We have but one alternative left us: We must make copious notes of all the peculiarities and markings of the bird that is be? Fore us. On our return home, we get down our bird books, and there are many excellent ones. After carefully lookingv'through the whole library, we find that, although many of our books are well illustrated none of them have the picture of what we seek, so we adopt the tactics of the Old time Ornithologist, before mentioned, and pore over pages of text, until finally we know what our bird was. It is for just such emergencies as this - to identify a bird when you see it, and where you see it, that this little pocket Bird Guide is prepared. May it be the medium for saving many of today' s seekers for bird truths, from the many trials and tribulations willingly encountered, and hard and thorny roads gladly traveled by the author in his quest for knowledge of bird ways. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.