able to fly, and are colored so exactly like the place upon which they
rest that it is almost impossible to see them, even if you know where
they are."

"How much there is to learn!" sighed Nat. "I'm afraid you will have to
make us a big book instead of a little one, Uncle Roy, to teach us all
these things. Olive and Rap have such a start of us. Dodo and I don't
know much of anything, and even what I thought I knew about birds isn't
very true."

"Don't be discouraged, my boy; you do not need a big book--a little one
will do for the present. What you need is patience, a pair of keen eyes,
and a good memory. With these and a little help from Olive, Rap, and
your old uncle, you can learn to know a hundred kinds of every-day
birds--those that can be found easily, and have either the sweetest
songs, the gayest plumage, or the most interesting habits. Some we shall
find here in the lane and swamp meadow, or by the river. Others have
made their home in my orchard for years. And I am going to put in the
book more than a hundred beautiful pictures for you and Dodo, drawn so
naturally that you can tell every one of the birds by them, and that
will make it easier for you to understand what you read.

"For some of the water birds we must go up to the lake or in the summer
make a trip over to the seashore. How do you like that? Yes, you too,
Rap. By and by, when you know these hundred birds by name and by
sight, you will be so far along on the road into Birdland that you can
choose your own way, and branch off right and left on whatever path
seems most attractive to you; but then you will need big books, and have
to learn long hard Latin names."