In speaking of the common names of birds, I would draw a sharp line between the English names recognized by the text books and the American Ornithologists’ Union, and the
purely local titles. Local names, Whether of flowers or birds, are often a hindrance to exact knowledge, because they frequently stand for more than one object. For example, I have heard the term Redbird applied alike to the Baltimore Oriole, Scarlet Tanager, and cardinal; but a, knowledge of the recognized common names of a bird will enable the student to find its species in any of the manuals.
Allowing that you wish to name the birds, do not be held back by minor considerations. You are not to be excluded from the pleasures of this acquaintance even if you are obliged to spend most of your life in the city. The bird-quest will lend a new attraction to your holidays, and you will be led toward the nearest park or along the front of river or harbour. Bradford Torrey gives, in his inimitable way, an account of the birds (some seventy species) which he saw on Boston Common, and Frank M. Chapman lists one hundred and thirty odd species which he has seen in Central Park, New York.[1]
The museums also are open to you, and their treasury of skilfully preserved birds offers the advantage of close inspection. The taxidermist’s art has reached great perfection lately, and in the place of bird mummies, stuffed and mounted each in the stiff attitude of its neighbour, without the tribal marks of pose or expression,—as much alike as the four-and-twenty blackbirds that were baked in the pie,—we now see the birds as individuals in their homes. The American Museum of Natural History, New York, has sixty such bird groups which show the Chimney Swift, nesting on his little bracket, the Ruffed Grouse rustling through the leaves with her tiny brown chicks, the Baltimore Oriole and its swinging nest, or the Black Duck guarding its bed
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- ↑ Mr. Chapman, Assistant Curator of the Department of Birds and Mammals of the Museum of Natural History, has recently completed an excellent Visitor’s Guide to the Museum’s collection of Birds, found within fifty miles of New York City, in which all birds seen in Central Park are specially noted.
