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They possess a further advantage in not being too large to be carried with you in your excursions afield, enabling you to name each feathered stranger on the spot. Should you desire a single volume that will help you to identify any bird you may meet on our continent, I would urge you to secure the latest revised edition of Dr. Elliott Coues's "Key to North American Birds."
Then I crossed more planted fields, climbing more barbed-wire fences, and stopping on the way to enjoy the sweetly quaint music of a little chorus of white-crowned sparrows, and skirted once more the muddy shore of the cane-swamp, where the yellowlegs and sandpipers were still feeding. Once back at the hotel, I opened my Coues's Key to refresh my memory as to the exact appearance of that bird.
Coues's "Key to North American Birds" is not accurate, for it represents our bird in the sitting posture with the tines of his fork spread apart. If the wings were outstretched, representing the bird in the act of alighting or shifting his position, the picture would be true to scissorstail life.
See The North Americans of Yesterday, by F. S. Dellenbaugh, p. 234; and for complete details see papers by Cosmos Mindeleff, Thirteenth An. Rep, Bu. Eth. and Fifteenth An. Rep. Bu, Eth.; also Font's description in Coues's Garces, p. 93.
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