GROWING WINGS

A bright, beady eye is at work in this watchful, warm- hearted account of the bird year. The acts of spring migration, courtship, mating, nest building, fertilization, territory establishment, the development of egg, incubation, hatching, the varied experiences of altricial (the unprepared) and precocial (ready to go on arrival) young, their achievement of independence, flocking and fall migration, and winter (abroad or in the yearly climate) are observed with absorption and keen pleasure, or sympathy as the scene deserves. There is a sense of the instincts and the ruling emotions of birds as they are revealed in their various postures, pursuing their various cyclical roles. If this book reads at times like a cram session, it is an exciting one, bound to impress any bird lover with its soundness of detail as well as its range of species observed, bound also to delight with its amused witness of the bird as hero and its compassionate appraisal of a bird's life in these bulldozing man-centered times. The author's drawings are as delightful as her text.