_Song._--Season when song is most frequent, also times of day. Does it consist of many or only a few notes? Is it cheery, like the robin's, or tuneful, like the thrush's, or rollicking and rapturous, like the bobolink's, or a Romanza, like the catbird's? Notice the different emotion sounds, the notes of fear, of parental or conjugal reprimand, of joy, of anger, of deep sorrow, made by the bird at times. _Food._--Insects (kinds), seeds, fruit, etc. _Nest._--Where placed, how made? _Incidents._--From the writer's knowledge of the bird. _This bird in literature._--What writers have described, what poets have immortalized him? How did they characterize him? Some of the following books are almost indispensable to one who wishes to know the birds:-- "Wake Robin," John Burroughs; "Birds and Poets," John Burroughs; "The Birds and Seasons of New England," Wilson Flagg; "Upland and Meadow," Charles C. Abbott; "Bird Ways," Olive Thorne Miller; "Birds through an Opera Glass," Florence A. Merriam; "Birds in the Bush," Bradford Torrey; "The Birds About Us," Charles C. Abbott; "From Blomidon to Smoky," Frank Bolles. Recent magazines should be searched and the current ones scrutinized for articles by any of the above-named writers. _Destruction of birds._--Find out how many birds are annually slaughtered in the United States, and for what purposes. In the report of the American Ornithologist Union published in 1886, it was estimated that about five million birds were annually required to fill the demand for the ornamentation of the hats of the American women. In 1896 it was estimated that the number thus used was ten million. "The slaughter is not confined to song-birds; everything that wears feathers is a target for the bird butcher. The destruction of 40,000 terns in a single season on Cape Cod, a million rail and reed birds (bobolinks) killed in a single month near Philadelphia, are facts that may well furnish food for reflection. The swamps and marshes of Florida are well known to have become depopulated of their egrets and herons, while the state at large has been for years a favorite slaughter ground of the milliners' emissaries." An article in _Forest and Stream_, speaking of the destruction of birds on Long Island, states that during a short period of four months 20,000 were supplied to the New York dealers from a single village.