Page:Bird-lore Vol 03.djvu/215

 How to Name the Birds STUDIES OF THE FAMILIES OF PASSERES BY FRANK M. CHAPMAN FIRST PAPER DURING the past year BiRD-LoRE has published a series of articles on "Birds and Seasons"* which, with "Suggestions for the Season's Study" and "Suggestions for the Season's Reading," were designed to tell the student what birds he might expect to find during each month in the year and to call his attention, in due time, to the more charac- teristic phases of bird -life as they were developed. It is now proposed to supplement these articles with a series of papers on identification. It may well be questioned whether, in view of the numerous text- books which have been especially prepared to assist beginners in naming birds, anything can be written which will further simplify the problem of identification, but the receipt, almost daily, of descriptions of birds which the observer is unable to find in any manual encourages a further attempt to lighten the labors of the student of 'birds through an opera-glass.' The Importance of a Comprehensive Grasp of the Subject. — If the student can only be induced to survey the ornithological field, at least superficially, before entering it he will find his way wonderfully simplified. The path to a knowledge of birds is by no means so tortuous as those who tread it in the dark believe. Our birds are not unlimited in number — they are all included in our text-books; no new species, in the United States at least, remain to be discovered, and if instead of attempting to identify a bird by aimlessly turning the pages of a book with a hope that some- thing like your rather vague mental image may be seen in the illustrations, the student will devote a few hours to memorizing the characters on which the families of birds are based, he will find the knowledge gained of service to him every time he essays to name a bird. The Families of Land -birds. — Omitting, for the present, all reference to water-birds, few of which come within the range of the average bird student's glasses, we have left in North America, east of the Mississippi, the following eight orders and thirty- two families of birds: Order I. Chicken-like Birds. GALLIN^E Family i. Grouse, Partridges, etc. Tetraonidte. 9 species. Family 2. Turkeys, etc. Phasianid<e. i species. life near Philadelphia," by Witmer Stone; "Bird-life near Oberlin, Ohio," by Lynds Jones; "Bird-life near Chicago," by Benjamin T. Gault; "Bird-life in California," by C. .A. Keeler and Lyman Bclding. (200)
 * " Bird-life near Boston," by Ralph Hoffmann; "Bird-life near New York City," by Frank M. Chapman; "Bird-