e shore,
while the juvenile autobiographies have received the approval of the
highest ornithological authority.

The publishers take pleasure in the announcement that the general
excellence of BIRDS will be maintained in subsequent volumes. The
subjects selected for the third and fourth volumes--many of them--will
be of the rare beauty in which the great Audubon, the limner _par
excellence_ of birds, would have found "the joy of imitation."

NATURE STUDY PUBLISHING COMPANY.

BIRDS.
ILLUSTRATED BY COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY
================================
VOL. II. AUGUST NO. 2
================================

BIRD SONG.

We made several early morning excursions into the woods and fields
during the month of June, and were abundantly rewarded in many
ways--by beholding the gracious awakening of Nature in her various
forms, kissed into renewed activity by the radiance of morn; by the
sweet smelling air filled with the perfume of a multitude of opening
flowers which had drunk again the dew of heaven; by the sight of
flitting clouds across the bluest of skies, patching the green earth
with moving shadows, and sweetest of all, by the twittering, calling,
musical sounds of love and joy which came to the ear from the throats
of the feathered throng. How pleasant to lie prone on one's back on
the cool grass, and gaze upward through the shady green canopy of
boughs, watching the pretty manoeuvers, the joyous greetings, the
lively anxieties, the graceful movements, and even the sorrowful
happenings of the bird-life above us.

Listen to the variety of their tones, as manifest as the difference of
form and color. What more interesting than to observe their habits,
and discover their cosy nests with their beautiful eggs in the
green foliage? Strange that so many persons think only of making a
collection of them, robbing the nests with heartless indifference to
the suffering of the parents, to say nothing of the invasion which
they make of the undoubted rights the birds have from nature to
protection and perpetuation.

Strictly speaking, there are few birds to which the word "singing"
can properly be applied, the majority of them not having more than
two or three notes, and they with little suggestion of music in them.
Chanticleer crows, his spouse cackles or clucks, as may be suitable to
the occasion. To what e