Chapter 8 No.8

He was tense with long-pent feeling. He expected to have the bookseller say that the price had gone up to one thousand dollars, and that all were sold. But he did not. He turned silently, drew the book out of a pile of them, hesitated and said, "Green or red cover?"

"Green," said Yan, not yet believing. The book-man looked inside, then laid it down, saying in a cold, business tone, "Ninety cents."

"Ninety cents," gasped Yan. Oh! if only he had known the ways of booksellers or the workings of cash discounts. For six weeks had he been barred this happy land-had suffered starvation; he had misappropriated funds, he had fractured his conscience and all to raise that ten cents-that unnecessary dime.

He read that book reverentially all the way home. It did not give him what he wanted, but that doubtless was his own fault. He pored over it, studied it, loved it, never doubting that now he had the key to all the wonders and mysteries of Nature. It was five years before he fully found out that the text was the most worthless trash ever foisted on a torpid public. Nevertheless, the book held some useful things; first, a list of the bird names; second, some thirty vile travesties of Audubon and Wilson's bird portraits.

These were the birds thus maligned:

Duck Hawk

Sparrow Hawk

White-headed Eagle

37 Great Horned Owl

Snowy Owl

Red-headed Woodpecker

Golden-winged Woodpecker

Barn-swallow

Whip-poor-will

Night Hawk

Belted Kingfisher

Kingbird

Woodthrush

Catbird

White-bellied Nuthatch

Brown Creeper

Bohemian Chatterer

Great Northern Shrike

Shore Lark

Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Bobolink

Meadow Lark

Bluejay

Ruffed Grouse

Great Blue Heron

Bittern

Wilson's Snipe

Long-biller Curlew

Purple Gallinule

Canada Goose

Wood Duck

Hooded Merganser

Double-crested Cormorant

Arctic Tern

Great Northern Diver

Stormy Petrel

Arctic Puffin

Black Guillemot