HINTS FOR FIELD WORK 21 



The capacity to take hints grows by practice, as the powers 

 of the eye and ear grow. The rapid identifications of the 

 expert seem marvelous at first, but a beginner soon learns to 

 tell a flying Goldfinch as far as he can see it. As season fol- 

 lows season, his eye, ear, and memory serve him better and 

 better, and at last he too walks through woods and fields, 

 hearing and recognizing distant calls or bits of song, or iden- 

 tifying the passing birds by a glimpse of some well-known 

 bit of color, or by some marked peculiarity of flight. 



