IN the fall of 1916, while visiting at the home of Mr. F. N. Doubleday, a member of the house which publishes most Of my books, in conversation with my very dear friend Mrs. N eltje De Graft Double day, the author of a number of invaluable books on birds and ?owers, She began to question me about unusual experiences I encountered afield. I told her some of the things here recorded, the queerest and most peculiar things that I had seen during a lifetime Of personal contact with the birds. In the course of that intimate conversation, Mrs. Doubleday conceived and planned this book, feel ing — I hope not mistakenly — that these intimate personal experiences with birds, which so in tensely interested her, would not fail to be of equal interest to other bird lovers and protectors. She felt that these records faithfully and simply set down would add very largely to the sum of human achievement in a scientific estimate of the habits and characteristics of birds.' So, I have written for any one who is interested, these sketches of personal experience, as I outlined them to such a.