Produced by Peter Vachuska, Stephen H. Sentoff, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: HOUDAN CHICKS WITH BARRED PLYMOUTH ROCK MOTHER. (Photograph by C. E. Petersen)] OUR DOMESTIC BIRDS ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN AVICULTURE BY JOHN H. ROBINSON GINN AND COMPANY BOSTON · NEW YORK · CHICAGO · LONDON COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY JOHN H. ROBINSON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 413.9 =The Athenæum Press= GINN AND COMPANY · PROPRIETORS · BOSTON · U.S.A. PREFACE Ten years ago aviculture had hardly been thought of as a school subject. To-day it is taught in thousands of schools, and in some states instruction in poultry culture is required by law. This rapid change in sentiment and situation has resulted from a combination of causes. When agricultural colleges established poultry departments, it was found that a large part of those applying for admission to them had neither the practical knowledge of poultry nor the general education that they needed to do work of college grade. About this time also the interest in nature study began to take a more practical turn, and attention was directed to the superiority of domesticated to wild animals and plants as material for school studies of the phenomena of physical life. Added to these special causes was a general cause more potent than either: great numbers of people had reached the stage of experience in various lines of aviculture where they realized keenly that a little sound instruction in the subject in youth would have been of great value to them later in life, saving them from costly mistakes. To these people it seemed both natural and necessary that the schools should teach poultry and pigeon culture. Developing as the result of such a combination of causes, the demand for an elementary textbook on poultry came with equal force from country schools, where poultry might be kept on the school grounds as well as by every pupil at home, from city schools, in which all instruction must be by book, and from all types of schools and conditions of life between. Had there been only the extreme classes of schools to consider, the natural way to supply the demand would be with a special book for each distinct type of school. The idea of one book for all schools, from which each might use what seemed to suit its requirements, was dismissed as impractical while so large a proportion of teachers were but slightly acquainted with the subject. It is believed that the plan of making an elementary reading course for general use, and a secondary book of a more technical character for use where practice courses are given, is the best solution of the problem under existing conditions.