As a boy, Edward Howe Forbush, the ornithologist, was up and away at daybreak every fine spring morning, exploring the woods and fields of West Roxbury. At thirteen, he stuffed a song sparrow—his first attempt at taxidermy. At fifteen, he gave up school in favor of birds. At sixteen, he was appointed Curator of Ornithology of the Worcester Natural History Society’s museum—undoubtedly one of the youngest curators anywhere about. He began “collecting,” which means shooting birds to get a closer look at them, and he continued to experiment with taxidermy after reading a book on it. “Such mummies,” he wrote of his mounted birds, “have their uses, but later I came to see that life, not death, would solve all riddles; that an examination of the dead was merely a preliminary to a study of the living, and that it was more essential to preserve the living than the dead.”

Even when he ate a bird (he was a hungry man and ate his share of birds), Mr. Forbush always saved the skin to further his scientific researches. His life was bound up with everything on wings, and his career culminated in the great Birds of Massachusetts and Other New England States, a three-volume summation of the avian scene. Mr. Forbush died in 1929, aged seventy-one, when the work was within a few pages of completion.

When I am out of joint, from bad weather or a poor run of thoughts, I like to sit and think about Edward Howe Forbush. I like to think of him on that June morning in 1908 when, marooned on a sandy islet near the elbow of Cape Cod, his stranded skiff awash, his oars carried to sea, a stiff sou’wester blowing, drifting sand cutting his face, sea rising, he allowed himself to become utterly absorbed in “an immense concourse of birds” resting on the sands, most of them common terns. I see him, again, concealed in the lowest branches of a spruce on a small island off the Maine coast—a soft, balmy night. He is observing the arrival of Leach’s petrels, whose burrows are underneath the tree—eerie, strange birds, whose chucklings and formless sounds might have been the conversation of elves. Or on that night when he visited a heronry among the sand dunes of Sandy Neck, Barnstable: “The windless air was stagnant and fetid; swarms of stinging midges, deerflies, and mosquitoes attacked at will; and vicious wood-ticks, hanging from the vegetation, reached for me with their clinging claws, and crawled upon my limbs, seeking an opening to bury their heads in my flesh.” In such uncomfortable situations, birds being near, Mr. Forbush found the purest delight.

I managed to acquire a set of Birds of Massachusetts about twenty years ago, and have been reading around in the books ever since, for refreshment and instruction. The first entry in Volume I is Holbœll’s grebe (grebes seem to rank nearest to the reptiles from which birds sprang). The last entry in Volume III is the golden-crowned sparrow, an accidental visitor to New England. In between these two entries are descriptive accounts and anecdotal reports of all the species known to visit New England, whether on business or on pleasure or through the accident of great storms. Although not a student of birds, I am thrown with them a good bit. It is much the same sort of experience as being thrown with people in the subway: I gaze at a female, and am filled with curiosity and a wish to know more than I do about her nesting site, breeding habits, measurements, voice, and range. In the subway, gazing at an interesting face, I have nothing to help me but my imagination. But among birds, when I encounter a new face or renew my acquaintance with an old one, I turn to Forbush for help in comprehending what I have been looking at. The information he imparts is, of course, reliable and often fascinating, but for the casual reader his great gift is his immense enthusiasm for anything that has feathers. I suppose all ornithologists rather approve of birds or they wouldn’t pursue the thing, but Edward Howe Forbush during his long and busy life was obviously enchanted with them. He was the champion of birds as well as their interpreter.

A certain tidiness infects Birds of Massachusetts. The arrangement is calming to the nerves. You always know what you are going to get and the order in which you will get it. Let us say you wish to satisfy an idle curiosity about the barn owl and you take out Volume II and turn to page 189. First, the Latin name. Then the common name. Then the “other” name (or names)—in this case, monkey-faced owl. Then comes a section in small type: description, measurements, molts, field marks, voice, breeding, range, distribution in New England, and season in Massachusetts. This fine-print section goes into great detail. The barn owl, for instance, is such an infrequent visitor to New England that Mr. Forbush lists the names of the persons who have observed him or taken him, and the dates (“Lexington, June 10, 1915, female taken by Chas. Fowle,” and so on). When it comes to describing the sounds a bird makes, Mr. Forbush is seldom content with giving his own rendition; instead, he assembles a company of listeners and lets each one do an imitation. The voice of the barn owl, depending on who is trying to get it on paper, is “a weird scream; a nasal snore; a loud, prolonged rasping sksck; a series of notes click, click, click, click, click, resembling in character the notes of a Katydid, but delivered with diminishing emphasis and shortening intervals during the end of the series.” The song of the black-throated green warbler: Bradford Torrey translates it as “trees, trees, murmuring trees,” a pleasing, dreamy, drawling, reedlike lay; others change it to “cheese, cheese, a little more cheese”; and Dr. C. W. Townsend sets it down as “Hear me, Saint Theresa,” (Mrs. M. M. Nice recorded two hundred and seventy-four repetitions of the song in one hour.) If you have any questions about nesting sites, eggs, period of incubation, breeding habits, breeding dates, appearance of young in juvenile plumage, range, or distribution, the answers will almost certainly be here in this section.

But when he’s all through with the monumental task of delineating his bird in fine print, Mr. Forbush cuts loose with larger type and wider thoughts. Under the heading “Haunts and Habits” he writes an essay about the bird, dropping his tight scientific detachment and indulging himself as stylist, enthusiast, and footloose reporter. It is in these free-swinging essays that the fun is—for me, anyway. The style of the pieces is peculiarly the author’s own—a rich prose occasionally touched with purple but never with dullness or disenchantment. A devotee of the periodic sentence, he often begins his report by setting the stage, leaving the bird out of it for a few moments, as in the very first entry (Holbœll’s grebe): “A bright clear day in January, a gentle breeze, a river mouth where the rippling flood flows into the sparkling sea, a lazy swell washing gently on the bar where a herd of mottled seals is basking in the sun, Old-squaws and Golden-eyes in small parties—such a scene at Ipswich is a fit setting for the great Grebe that winters on our coasts.” Or the entry for the ivory gull: “In spring dawns, fair and rosy, when the sun rising over the blue Arctic, magnificent with floating ice, reveals scene of gorgeous splendor; where ice lies in innumerable shapes, some sparkling like gems and prisms, others rearing vast, white, phantasmal forms; on the edge of the ice pack where the wind opens vast sealanes; where the mirage shows towering mountains that never were on land or sea; in summer or winter, in storm or sunshine, there dwells the white Gull, bird of the ice and snow.”

Sometimes, ignoring the scene, he leaps to the side of his bird and launches an attack on its detractors, as with the barn owl: “Since the dawn of history, owls have been the pitiable victims of ignorance and superstition. Hated, despised, and feared by many peoples, only their nocturnal habits have enabled them to survive in company with civilized man. In the minds of mankind they have been leagued with witches and malignant evil spirits, or even have been believed to personify the Evil One. They have been regarded as precursors of sorrow and death, and some savage tribes have been so fixed in the belief that a man will die if an owl alights on the roof of his dwelling that, it is said, some Indians having actually seen the owl on the roof-tree have pined away and died. Among all these eerie birds, the Barn Owl has been the victim of the greatest share of obloquy and persecution, owing to its sinister appearance, its weird night cries, its habit of haunting dismal swamps and dank quagmires, where an incautious step may precipitate the investigator into malodorous filth or sucking quicksands, and its tendency to frequent the neighborhood of man’s dwellings, especially unoccupied buildings and ghostly ruins. Doubtless the Barn Owl is responsible for some of the stories of haunted houses which have been current through the centuries. When divested by science of its atmosphere of malign mystery, however, this owl is seen to be not only harmless but a benefactor to mankind and a very interesting fowl that will well repay close study.”

Sometimes Mr. Forbush devotes most of his essay to some peculiarity of the bird: how the bittern produces its famous sounds of pumping and of stake-driving; whether the night heron really can throw out a light from its breast, as some believe; whether the cedar waxwing’s dizzy spells are caused by its drinking too much fermented juice or by plain gluttony. Sometimes he starts his essay off with a bit of plain talk, straight from the shoulder, to clear up any misconception about the subject: “Cowbirds are free lovers. They are neither polygamous nor polyandrous—just promiscuous. They have no demesne and no domicile; they are entirely unattached. Their courting is brief and to the point. In this pleasant pastime the male usually takes the lead.”

When he has finished with one of these rambling essays, Mr. Forbush winds up his study of the species with a short, businesslike paragraph headed “Economic Status.” Here he weighs the bird’s usefulness against its crimes, and it is in these concluding paragraphs, in which the bird is usually subjected to the ordeal of having the contents of its stomach examined, that you see Mr. Forbush the partisan wrestling with Mr. Forbush the scientist. The two are evenly matched, and they struggle manfully. Not all birds are popular in this world, and a number of them have police records. The crow is a cornpatch vandal. The jay is a common thief. The cormorant poses a threat to the salmon fishery. The shrike catches other birds and impales them in a thornbush for future reference. The bobolink knocks the spots out of a rice harvest. The owl presages death. The herring gull annoys commercial fishermen and befouls the decks of yachts at anchor. And so on—a long list of crimes and misdeeds. Edward Howe Forbush, however, during his long life of studying birds, managed to see more good in them than bad, and the dark chapters in the avian book are deeply challenging to him. Of the cruel shrike he says that “though we may deplore his attack on the smaller birds, we can but admire his self-reliance, audacity and courage,” and that “all economic ornithologists who have investigated the food of this species regard it as a useful bird.” Yet the author is scrupulously fair—he ends his defense by quoting Mr. W. L. Dawson, author of Birds of Ohio, who finds the shrike’s offenses hard to forgive, and who says he keeps his gun loaded.

Of the mischievous crow Mr. Forbush says, “Its habit of eating eggs and young of other birds should not count too heavily against it, as the birds thus molested usually have an opportunity to raise young later in the season, when the young Crows have been reared, and natural enemies of birds are necessary to keep their numbers within bounds.” Mr. Forbush also recalls with relish the case of a sheepman who annihilated the crows in his region because they killed newborn lambs, only to discover that the grass in his pastures was dying from white grubs, which had increased rapidly following the destruction of the crows. You can feel his heart rise up at this bit of ecological justice.

In his role as defense attorney for the birds, Mr. Forbush is not merely spirited, he is wonderfully resourceful. He thinks of everything. After listing the obvious benefactions of gulls (they destroy grasshoppers and locusts, dispose of dead fish and garbage, eat field mice and other pests, and in foggy weather enable mariners to locate dangerous rocks and ledges by their shrill cries), he springs a surprise. “In war time,” he says triumphantly, “gulls show the location of drifting mines by perching upon them.” What jury would convict a seagull after that piece of testimony?

The common tern: “It never east marketable fish.”

The blue jay: “Jays bury nuts and seeds in the ground, thus planting forests. They also regurgitate smaller seeds and so distribute them.”

The cedar waxwing: “If the cherry grower, when planting an orchard, would first set out a row of soft early cherries or early mulberries around his orchard, and allow the birds to take the fruit from those trees, he might thereby save the main crop of later, harder, and more marketable fruit.”

The sharp-shinned hawk: “It is not a bird for the farmer to tolerate about his chicken coops nor is it desirable about a bird preserve. Nevertheless, in the eternal scheme of the universe, its existence serves to check the undue increase of small birds and to prevent the propagation of unfitness and disease among them.”

When Mr. Forbush came to the economic status of the brown pelican, which not only loves fish but boldly advertises the fact by carrying a pouch to hold them in, he knew he was in a tough spot. Without hesitation, he called to his assistance Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, onetime president of the National Association of Audubon Societies, who, in the spring of 1918, had investigated the pelican’s criminal record and reported on it to the Federal Food Administrator. Mr. Pearson proved every bit as slippery in arguing a case as Mr. Forbush himself. He first testified that the stomachs of pelicans contained no trout, mackerel, or pompano; instead, they were loaded with mullet, pigfish, Gulf menhaden, pinfish, and thread herring. Then he introduced an exciting new theme. “These large, grotesque-looking birds,” he wrote, “afford winter tourists much interest as they flop about the docks . . . and many postcards bearing pictures of pelicans are sent north every year. It is quite possible that the profits made on pelican postcards at Florida newsstands exceed in value the total quantity of food fish captured by the pelicans in the waters along its charming coast.”

A wanderer in the pages of Forbush is rewarded with many delights and surprises, not the least of which are the peerless illustrations by Louis Agassiz Fuertes and Allan Brooks. To me, one of the chief amusements of the work is the presence of Mr. For-bush’s large company of informers, or tipsters: people who at one time or another wrote him or phoned him to tell of an encounter with a bird—a strange doing, an odd fact, a bizarre occurrence. By paying heed to these people and giving them house-room, Mr. Forbush adds greatly to his own abundant store of knowledge besides livening things up for the reader. He welcomes tipsters just as a newspaper columnist welcomes them. Some of his are professional bird people, known to him. Some are contributors of articles to nature publications, from which Mr. F. has lifted a juicy passage. But scattered through the three volumes are the names of hundreds of amateurs and strangers, who by reporting some oddity of bird behavior or recording an unlikely arrival have achieved immortality; their names are embedded in the text of Birds of Massachusetts as firmly as a bottle cap in a city pavement, and they are for the ages. Their lives, from the evidence, appear to be wonderfully haphazard and fortuitous. One of them will be “sharpening a sickle” when he looks up to see a girl attacked by an eagle; one of them will “happen to be” in a little outbuilding at precisely the right moment to witness the courtship of whip-poorwills; one of them will chance to step from a clump of small pines facing an alder run, and there, right before his eyes, will be the nest of a least flycatcher. The reader has hardly got started on Volume I before the first of these tipsters pops up: “Mr. Wilbur F. Smith, of South Norwalk, Connecticut, wrote to me March 27, 1916, that he had observed Holbœll’s Grebes fishing near an anchored boat on which a fisherman lived. . . . Mr. Smith noted that when a bird had swallowed a particularly large fish, it put its head on its back and went to sleep.”

Well, there you are. It’ll be fifty years next month that Smith of South Norwalk discovered that a grebe grabs a little shut-eye after a heavy fish dinner, but the news comes as fresh today as when the letter was dropped in the mail. (I called the informant “Smith” just now, but Mr. Forbush was a courtly man and always used the polite “Mr.” or “Miss” or “Mrs.” or “Dr.” in introducing his people.)

I have taken it on myself to bring a few of Forbush’s friends together—a sort of convention of tipsters, pros and amateurs alike—and will here summarize their findings about birds. My fist is necessarily selective; out of perhaps a thousand I’ve chosen a handful. And I have shortened their tales, giving merely the gist of the observations. Here they are, a goodly company, bright of eye, quick to take pen in hand:

Mr. Sidney Chase, of Nantucket. Saw loon rinse mouth after repast. May 3, 1922.

Mr. Harold Cooke, of Kingston. Found puffin in garage, offered it spaghetti. Spaghetti was accepted. February 1, 1922.

Mrs. Lidian E. Bridge, of Rockport. While standing on rock overlooking sea, saw two dovekies meet underwater. As they met, they uttered “an absurd little screech.” No date.

Mr. Horace Bearse, of Chatham. Saw starving crow attack starving herring gull after clash at garbage heap. Winter of 1919-20, a hard winter.

Mr. J. A. Farley. In the Gulf of St. Lawrence saw ring-billed gull scratch its face with its claw as it flew. Insouciance. No date.

Mr. Allan Keniston. While visiting Muskeget Island saw young laughing gulls eject the remains of cicadas. Insects had been flown twenty miles from Cape Cod by the gulls’ parents. 1923.

Captain B. F. Goss. Saw Caspian terns dive on their own eggs, break them. Terns apparently did not want eggs to fall into hands of intruders. No date.

Mr. David Gould. At Nauset, watched newly hatched common terns during windstorm. Blowing sand adhered to wet plumage, many babies buried alive. No date.

Dr. L. B. Bishop. At Stump Lake, North Dakota, saw terns strike and kill young ring-billed gulls in retaliation for adult gulls’ eating terns’ eggs. No date.

Dr. Joseph Grinnell. Passed night on island of St. Lazaria, Alaska. Found it impossible to keep campfire alight because Leach’s petrels, who stay out all night, flew into fire in such numbers as to extinguish it. June 1896.

Mr. Frank A. Brown. On Machias Seal Island, found dog that was killing average of ten petrels a day by digging them out of their burrows. No date.

Reverend J. H. Linsley. Opened the stomach of a gannet, found bird. Opened stomach of that bird, found another bird. Bird within bird within bird. No date.

Mr. George H. Mackay. On Cormorant Rock, off Newport, found large number of curious balls. Appeared to have been ejected by cormorants. One ball, 5.25 inches in circumference, contained three crabs. April 1892.

Mr. Stanley C. Jewett. Asserts that wounded red-breasted merganser at Netarts Bay, Oregon, dived to submerged root in three feet of water and died while clinging there. Apparent suicide. May 1915.

Mr. J. A. Munro, of Okanagan Landing, British Columbia. Watched male bufflehead, far gone in passion, dive under another male, toss him into air. Sexual jealousy. No date.

Mr. G. Dallas Hanna. At Pribilof Islands, sought wounded harlequin duck that dived and failed to reappear. Found it dead in eight feet of water, clinging with bill to kelp near bottom. Apparent suicide. No date.

Mr. George H. Mackay again. Presented Mr. Forbush with head of female eider duck that had been found dying on Nantucket with large mussel in mouth. Mussel had closed on bird’s tongue. Bird starved. Mussel remained alive, did not relax grip. January 3, 1923.

Mr. W. Sprague Brooks. In Alaska lagoon saw three male king eiders courting one female. Much neck stretching and bowing of heads. Occasionally, one male would interrupt courtship long enough to take a bath. Female unimpressed by this bathing ploy. June 14, 1915.

Mr. George W. Morse, of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Saw great blue heron strike at small fish between own legs, tripping self up. Heron was carried downstream in capsized position with legs in air. It held on to the fish. No date.

Mrs. L. H. Touissaint. States that in one morning a pet sandhill crane captured and consumed 148 grasshoppers, 2 moths, a roach, a lizard, 2 grubs, and 11 spiders. No date.

Mr. Isador S. Trostler. Says woodcocks often play in very droll manner, run round and round each other in small circles, with wings lifted and bills pointed nearly to the zenith.

Mr. E. O. Grant. While kneeling on ground imitating squeal of spruce-grouse chick, had mother grouse fly directly at his head. No damage. No date.

Mr. W. L. Bishop. Found ruffed grouse submerged in brook, except for head, to escape goshawk. No date.

Mr. Charles Hayward. Examined crop of a ruffed grouse. Found 140 apple buds, 134 pieces of laurel leaves, 28 wintergreen leaves, 69 birch buds, 205 blueberry buds, 201 cherry buds, and 109 blueberry stems. Splendid appetite. No date.

Mrs. Eliza Cabot. Saw heath hen in her youth, another after her marriage. Late eighteenth century, early nineteenth century.

Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson. Lady of his acquaintance, while sitting alone in her room, was startled when beef bone fell out onto hearth. Went outside, discovered turkey buzzard peering down chimney. Carelessness on part of bird. No date.

Mr. William Brewster, of Concord. Was standing by corner of one of his barns. Phoebe pursued by sharp-shinned hawk used Brewster’s body as shield in eluding hawk. No date.

Dr. P. L. Hatch. While riding across Minnesota prairie during winter gale, temperature 46° below zero, saw sharp-shinned hawk seize snow bunting at high speed. No date.

Mr. H. H. Waterman, of Auburn, Maine. Saw Cooper’s hawk plunge flicker in roadside ditch containing one foot of water, hold it under for three minutes. May 15, 1921.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam. Attacked by enraged goshawk for defending hen. Hen hid under catnip plant during melee, remained there for five hours following encounter. October 3, 1882.

Mr. M. Semper, of Mapes P. O., British Columbia. Was at neighbor’s house sharpening a mower sickle, saw golden eagle seize neighbor’s little girl, Ellen Gibbs, by arm. Mr. Semper kicked eagle with no effect. Girl’s mother appeared, decapitated eagle with good effect. No date.

Mrs. Elizabeth Caswell. Saw bald eagle fly directly at her house. Before reaching house, eagle swooped down, picked up what seemed to be large rat. Mrs. Caswell surprised at this. No date.

Mr. Eugene P. Bicknell. Saw duck hawk capture monarch butterfly on the wing. Hawk appeared to release prey in disgust. November 12, 1922.

Mr. Aretas A. Saunders. Heard sparrow hawk, while hovering, squeal like mouse. Hawk possibly trying to entice mouse from concealment. No date.

Friend of Mr. Forbush’s, no name. Bought farm in Touisset, found osprey’s nest atop chimney. Ospreys in charge of premises. Owner removed nest. Birds immediately began rebuilding, using sticks, clods, and stones. Owner, now desperate, shot female. Male went off, returned a few hours later with another mate. Pair went on with rebuilding operations. Filled chimney from bottom to top with sticks, stones, and rubbish. Owner accepted challenge, shot both birds. Large section of chimney had to be removed on one side, for removal of material choking flue. Perseverance. No date.

Dr. Anne E. Perkins, in letter from Helmuth, New York. Picked up pellets of barred owl, found they contained pig bristles and a piece of broken bone. March 23, 1925.

Mr. Joseph B. Underhill. Caught and confined male great horned owl. In return, was struck and injured by female owl. Much blood spilled. 1885.

Miss Florence Pease. Reported large owl with steel trap on one leg alighted on factory in Connecticut. Incident caused so much excitement among workers, plant was shut down for the day. 1919.

Mr. Zenas Langford, of Plymouth. Told Mr. J. A. Farley he witnessed struggle between great horned owl and blacksnake. Owl caught snake, snake twisted self around owl so latter unable to fly, fell to ground with prey. Owl held snake six inches below head, snake threw turn around owl’s neck. Owl nearly exhausted but retained grip. Mr. Langford killed snake (four feet), wrapped owl in blanket, took it home, kept it a week, let it go. No date.

Mr. R. J. Gregory, of Princeton. Saw snowy owl perch in tree, devour a bird—a meadowlark. After the meal, owl dropped to ground, washed face in snow, pushing its head through the snow “in a manner similar to the way cats have been known to act.” (Author’s note: Dachshunds have also been known to act this way, using broadloom carpet instead of snow.)

Mr. F. H. Mosher (“a competent observer”). Watched yellow-billed cuckoo eat 41 gypsy caterpillars in fifteen minutes. Later saw another cuckoo eat 47 forest tent caterpillars in six minutes.

Mr. J. L. Davison, of Lockport, New York. Found a black-billed cuckoo and a mourning dove sitting together in a robin’s nest. Nest contained two eggs of cuckoo, two of dove, one of robin. Bad management. June 17, 1882.

Mrs. Mary Treat. Watched kingfisher that commonly fished near her windows, observed that when water was too rough for fishing, bird visited sour-gum tree (Nyssa aquatica) and greedily devoured berries, afterward regurgitated pellets of seeds in same manner it ejected scales and bones of fish. No date.

Mrs. Gene Stratton Porter. Examined food remains in nest of kingfisher, found one-tenth of them to be nearly equally divided between berry seeds and the hard parts of grasshoppers. Exacting work but easier than writing. No date.

Mrs. W. F. Eldredge, of Rockport. Reported downy woodpecker had chiselled nest hole through cement filling of hollow limb. Spring of 1919.

Mrs. Arthur Caswell, of Athol. Saw three downy woodpeckers busy tapping maple trees near her windows. Suet was fastened to tree trunks. Woodpeckers would fill up on suet, then chase it with deep draughts of sap. No date.

Mr. Charles E. Bailey, assistant to Mr. Forbush. Observed downy woodpecker climb over and inspect 181 woodland trees between 9:40 A.M. and 12:15 P.M. and make 26 excavations for food. (At this point, Mr. Bailey presumably began thinking about food himself.) March 28, 1899.

Mr. Harry E. Woods, of Huntington. Watched pair of yellow-bellied sapsuckers feeding their young on insects. Each insect was taken by the bird to a tree in which was a hole the size of a quarter; insect was soaked in sap, then fed to young. Principle of the cocktail-hour dip. No date.

Major Charles Bendire. Witnessed tryst of whippoorwills. “I happened to be in a little outbuilding, some 20 feet in the rear of the house at which we were stopping, early on the evening of the 24th, about half an hour after sundown, when I heard a peculiar, low, clucking noise outside, which was directly followed by the familiar call of ‘whip-poor-will.’ . . . Directly alongside of the small outbuilding previously referred to, a barrel of sand and lime had been spilled, and from the numerous tracks of these birds, made by them nightly afterwards, it was evident that this spot was visited regularly, and was the trysting place of at least one pair. Looking through a small aperture, I saw one of the birds waddling about in a very excited manner over the sand-covered space, which was perhaps 2 by 3 feet square, and it was so much interested in its own performance that it did not notice me, although I made some noise trying to fight off a swarm of mosquitoes which assailed me from all sides. Its head appeared to be all mouth, and its notes were uttered so rapidly that, close as I was to the bird, they sounded like one long, continuous roll. A few seconds after his first effort (it was the male) he was joined by his mate, and she at once commenced to respond with a peculiar, low, buzzing or grunting note, like ‘gaw-gaw-gaw,’ undoubtedly a note of approval or endearment. This evidently cost her considerable effort; her head almost touched the ground while uttering it, her plumage was relaxed, and her whole body seemed to be in a violent tremble. The male in the meantime had sidled up to her and touched her bill with his, which made her move slightly to one side, but so slowly that he easily kept close alongside of her. These sidling movement were kept up for a minute or more each time; first one would move away, followed by the other, and then it would be reversed; both were about equally bold and coy at the same time. Their entire lovemaking looked exceedingly human, and the female acted as timid and bashful as many young maidens would when receiving the first declarations of their would-be lovers, while the lowering of her head might easily be interpreted as being done to hide her blushes. Just about the time I thought this courtship would reach its climax, a dog ran out of the house and caused both to take flight.” 1895.

Mr. Manly Hardy. Camped on island off Maine coast. The discarded red shells of cooked lobsters were all about. Ruby-throated hummingbird suddenly appeared out of fog, went from shell to shell under impression they were flowers. 1895.

Miss Inez A. Howe. Observed courtship of pileated woodpeckers. Birds met in treetop, spread wings to full width, danced, balanced before each other, bowed to each other, kissed, then repeated performance. Miss Howe greatly impressed by this pretty sight. April 23, 1921, in the morning.

Mr. Franklin P. Cook, of Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Found phoebe’s nest inside field-telephone box on rifle range. Firing of long-range rifles did not disturb birds in the least. No date.

Mr. Frithof Kumlien. Tells of an old, worn, partly blind blue jay that was fed, tended, and guarded by his companions, who never deserted him. They regularly guided him to a spring, where he bathed.

Mr. J. N. Baskett. Saw blue jay lift wing, rub walnut leaves into feathers underneath. No date.

Miss Grace Ellicott, of Newcastle, Indiana. Saw blue jay pick ants from anthill, tuck them under wing for safekeeping. 1908.

Mrs. Arthur Caswell, of Athol, again. Three crows came to large oak tree near her home. First one, then another held its head down to have its feathers dressed by the others. Afterward, they presented one another with little sticks, and touched beaks together. No date.

Mr. Adelbert Temple, of Hopkinton. Pet crow went ice fishing with Temple’s son. Crow sprang the tilts, one after another; laughed after each episode. No date.

Mr. Frank E. Peck, of Wareham. As child, was playing with silver shoe buckle tied to ribbon. Male Baltimore oriole spied ribbon, swooped down, seized it. Later, ribbon and buckle were seen to be woven into nest, giving nest bright appearance. No date.

Mr. E. O. Grant again. Saw farmer near Patten, Maine, sitting on a snowdrift about fifteen feet high, surrounded by a hundred redpolls. Birds perched on farmer’s head and shoulders. One sat on knee. Farmer told Grant he had enjoyed the previous half hour more than any other period in his life. March 23, 1926.

Mr. William Holden, of Leominster, and neighbor Mr. E. R. Davis. These two men had fed birds, including pine siskins. Because Mr. Davis was late riser, siskins entered his bedroom, pulled his hair, tweaked his ears, to induce him to uncover seed dish. One morning, Mr. Davis, in an experimental mood, covered his head, leaving only small hole through which to observe birds. One bird discovered peephole, reached in, tapped Mr. Davis on forehead. March 1926.

Mr. B. H. Newell, of City Point, Maine. Female house sparrow removed eggs from thirty-five cliff swallows’ nests at his place. Sparrow drove bill into egg after egg, dropped eggs to ground. No date.

Mr. H. C. Denslow. Timed the chirps of a Henslow’s sparrow, which sings in its sleep. Found they came eight to the minute.

Miss Viola E. Crittenden, of North Adams. Chipping sparrow had nest not far from robin’s next under construction. Chippy very kindly brought straws, dropped them into unfinished structure for convenience of robin. This occurrence considered unique by Mr. Forbush. No date.

Mr. Henry Hales, of Ridgewood, New Jersey. Male scarlet tanager so anxious to become father that he started tending young chipping sparrows nearby, who hatched before his own brood.

Miss Clara E. Reed. Tells of cliffswallow nest that fell, carrying young birds along with it. Birds were put in strawberry basket, which was then hung where nest had been. Parent birds accepted situation, lined basket with mud, raised young. Liked basket-nest well enough to return to it next year. No date.

Mrs. Chester Bancroft, of Tyngsborough. Reported to Thornton Burgess she saw large bullfrog with barn swallow in mouth. Mr. Burgess relayed information to Mr. Forbush. Summer of 1927.

Miss Dorothy A. Baldwin, of Hardwick. Observed inconstancy in female tree swallow. Entertained young male when husband off somewhere. Happened again and again. One day, female left with interloper. Mate mourned for day, then disappeared, leaving eggs cold in deserted nest. Broken home. No date.

Mr. John Willison. In woods behind Mayflower Inn, at Manomet Point, came upon gay crowd of cedar waxwings swigging ripe choke-cherry juice. All birds had had one too many, were falling-down drunk. (Social drinking a common failing of waxwings.) No date.

Mr. William C. Wheeler. Whistled song of robin as he approached northern shrike. (There are all kinds of bird people and they are up to all kinds of stunts.) Shrike mimicked song, repeated it three times. No date.

Mr. Neil F. Posson. Credits yellow warbler with 3,240 songs a day, or 22,680 a week. 1892.

Dr. H. F. Perkins. Found yellow warbler’s nest six stories high with a cowbird’s egg on every floor. The warblers, each time they discovered a stranger’s egg in the nest, built on top of it, thus burying the egg. No date.

Miss Fannie. A. Stebbins. Young pine warbler was detained for three days in schoolroom in Springfield. Parents flew in at the window during school sessions, fed bird. No date.

Mr. Arthur T. Wayne. Wore out suit of clothes pursuing Louisiana water thrush through dense swamp in South Carolina during one entire week. Failed to get bird. No date.

Mr. Arthur W. Brockway. Female Maryland yellowthroat found shoe left out on underpinning of house. Bird built nest in shoe, laid five eggs, began to incubate, was attacked by dog. 1899.

Mrs. George H. McGregor, of Fall River. While sitting on front porch one evening, heard catbird sound “Taps.” Believes bird picked it up from hearing it played at burial services in nearby cemetery. No date.

Mrs. Jean E. Carth. Heard brown thrasher imitate frog. No date.

Owner of a barn in Fairhaven (no name given). Had pair of Carolina wrens build nest in basket containing sticks of dynamite. No untoward results. No date.

Mrs. Daisy Dill Norton. Found female house wren nesting in bluebird nest box, with no mate. Little wren busy and happy with domestic chores, allowed no other bird near, male or female; whiled away time by laying eggs. Laid, it turned out later, twelve. No date.

Miss Elizabeth Dickens. While on Block Island saw brown creeper climbing cow’s tail. No date.

Miss Mabel T. Tilton, of Vineyard Haven. Became friendly with redbreasted nuthatch. Bird made use of her hand to warm its feet, took many liberties with her fingernails. No date.

Mrs. Olive Thorne Miller. Reported case of female tufted titmouse stealing hair from gentleman in Ohio for use in nest building. Bird lit on gentleman’s head, seized a beakful, braced itself, jerked lock out, flew away, came back for more. Gentleman a bird lover, consented to give hair again. No date.

Reverend William R. Lord. Talked to robin in low, confidential tone. Bird liked this, followed Lord. No date.

Mrs. Elizabeth L. Burbank, of Sandwich. Observed male robin act in peculiar manner. While female incubated eggs on nest, male crouched on lawn, imitated her—fluffing out feathers, rising up, pretending to turn eggs. No date,

Mr. Fred G. Knaub, of New Haven. Male bluebird neglected own family in order to tend young house wrens in nest box nearby. Fought wren parents to a fare-thee-well. No date.

Dr. Mary F. Hobart, of Needham. Male bluebird became infatuated with caged canary. Began flirtation on May 16th, continued it while own mate was busy incubating eggs. Frequently alighted on canary’s cage, offered worms, caterpillars. July 1st, saw error of ways or tired of color yellow, returned to mate, resumed parental duties. No date.

Of all Mr. Forbush’s tipsters, the only one I am jealous of is Fred G. Floyd, of Hingham. Mr. Floyd beat me to a very fine niche in Birds of Massachusetts—he beat me by some thirty years. There is just one record of a Harris’s sparrow in Birds, and Mr. Floyd, along with his wife, get the credit for it. The bird was seen in Hingham in April 1929, shortly after Mr. Forbush’s death but still in time to get into the unfinished Volume III. Five or six years ago, I, too, was visited by a Harris’s sparrow; one showed up at my home in Maine and hung around the feeding station for three days—a beautifully turned-out bird, reddish-brown, with a black face and throat and white waistcoat. At first I didn’t know what I was looking at, but I soon found out. The bird is almost unknown in New England, and this one was at least a thousand miles from where he belonged. We had had a gale not long before, and he must have ridden it all the way from Nebraska or Kansas.

I have never seen a loon rinse its mouth, but once I liberated a hummingbird from a spider’s web. Mr. Forbush, I think, would have wanted to hear about that. I have never watched a merganser commit suicide, but once, in Florida, I saw two flickers dancing at one end of a tin rain gutter to music supplied by a red-bellied woodpecker, who was drumming on the gutter at the other end. Mr. Forbush came instantly to mind. I have never seen a bullfrog with a swallow in its mouth, but the first cast I ever made with a spinning reel (it was a practice shot on a lawn) was taken by a mockingbird, who swept down out of a bush and grabbed the bob. These are my noteworthy bird experiences. Alas, they are too late. (And I should add that I know a man who, while hunting in the woods, learned over to pick up a glove and was bit on the nose by a bittern. He is Mr. Ward F. Snow, of Blue Hill, Maine. November 1965.)

If Edward Howe Forbush’s prose is occasionally overblown, this results from a genuine ecstasy in the man, rather than from lack of discipline. Reading the essays, one shares his ecstasy. I have nothing in my bookshelves that I turn to more often or with greater satisfaction than his Birds. He is a man for all seasons, and, like a flight of geese, he carries his reader along into season yet to come. On a winter’s evening, it is a pure pleasure to read, “When the spring rains and mounting sun begin to tint the meadow grass, when the alewives run up the streams, when the blackbirds and the spring frogs sing their full chorus, then the Snipe arrives at night on the south wind.”