Make a map on large scale of the locality of the school, showing on it the topographic features of the region, such as streams, ponds, marshes, hills, woods, springs, wild pastures, etc., also roads and paths, and such landmarks as schoolhouses, county churches, etc. On this map indicate the local distribution of the birds, as determined by the data gradually gathered; mark favorite nesting-places of various species, roosting-places of crows and blackbirds, feeding-places, and bathing- and drinking-places of certain kinds, the exact spots of finding rare visitants, rare nests, etc., etc. The making of such a zoogeographical map will be a source of great interest and profit to the students.
As already mentioned, many of the birds of a locality are "migrants," that is, they breed farther north, but spend the winter in more southern latitudes. These migrants pass through the locality twice each year, going north in the spring and south in the autumn. They are much more likely to be observed during the spring migration than in the fall, as the flight south is usually more hurried. The observation of the migration of birds is very interesting, and much can be done by beginning students. Notes should be made recording the first time each spring a migrating species is seen, the time when it is most abundant and the last time it is seen the same spring. Similar records should be made showing the movements of the birds in the fall. A series of such records covering a few years will show which are the earliest species to appear, which the later, and which the last. Such records of appearance and disappearance should also be kept for the summer residents, those birds that come from the South in the spring, breed in the locality, and then depart for the South again in the autumn. Notes on the kinds of days, as stormy, clear, cold, warm, etc., on which the migration seems to be most active; on the greater prevalence of migratory flights by day or by night; on the height from the earth at which the migrants fly, etc., are all worth while. The Division of Biological Survey, U. S. Department of Agriculture, keeps records of notes on migration sent in by voluntary observers and furnishes blanks to be filled out by each observer. A suggestive book about migration, and one giving the records for many species at many points in the Mississippi valley is Cooke's "Bird Migration in the Mississippi Valley." Migration is discussed in most bird-books.