Even with the best manual in hand, you must not expect to be able to identify every new bird at the first attempt, for some species are either exceedingly shy or obscurely marked, or probably both, while quite a number are so much alike in markings and habits that it is hard to distinguish them from one another. A few birds remained enigmas to me for a number of years, in spite of the help of the field glass. At intervals for several months you will often catch provoking glimpses of some nymph-like bird before you succeed in determining its true place in the avian system. But patience and persistence will some day overcome the most stubborn difficulties. Since the foregoing references to leading bird manuals were written, a new work, which is unique in plan, has been published. I refer to the book entitled "Color Key to North American Birds"; text by Frank M. Chapman, pictures by Chester A. Reed. The range of the volume is from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean and from the southern boundary of the United States to the far north. It contains a brief description of every species and sub-species within the limits named; a key to all the Orders and Families, with the common and scientific names of all the birds; an introduction to every chief division; and last, and highly important, colored pictures of all the species and many of the geographical varieties. What more can the bird student desire for purposes of identification? While the other manuals give fuller descriptions of habits, songs, etc., and need not, therefore, be superseded by this volume, yet frankness forces us to say that if the student, and especially the beginner, cannot afford to buy more than one bird book, the Chapman-Reed "Color Key" is the one to get. It is of a convenient size for carrying afield, so that a feathered stranger can be identified on the spot. It can be used anywhere in the United States, in British America, and Alaska. Think of that, fellow bird-lovers! A good field glass is indispensable to successful bird study, especially if you desire to name all the birds without killing any, as I hope you do. Perhaps the older ornithologists, like Audubon and Wilson, did not use helps of this kind, but they used guns, and consequently had to study dead birds, while you and I want to study living ones. Their killing of birds was, indeed, necessary, for purposes of scientific classification; but now that such classifying has, for the most part, been attained, the gun has largely gone out of vogue, and the glass has taken its place. Let your alliterative motto be: _With the glass, not the gun_.