INDIVIDUALITY IN BIRDS. 223 



of man and its ability to elude him. No wonder 

 that, to the bird, a man is merely a man. The 

 preponderance of evil in man's treatment of the 

 lower animals makes it impossible for wood 

 duck, fox, or trout to delay flight to determine 

 whether the individual man who appears by the 

 lake or in the pasture is impelled by kindness or 

 by a desire to commit murder. 



Those who know birds only as birds, without 

 separating them into races, species, or individu- 

 als, have no such excuse to offer for their failure 

 to distinguish and appreciate. They are not 

 hunted to death by the fair creatures which peo- 

 ple the wild world around them. They have 

 ample time and more than ample provocation to 

 learn something of these shy, sweet neighbors. 

 No lifetime is long enough to learn all about 

 even one bird ; but there are few men who do 

 not sometimes pass beyond the limits of brick 

 walls and cobblestone pavements, and whenever 

 they do pass such limits the birds are with them. 

 In our own Boston, gulls, crows, and several 

 kinds of ducks are constantly present along the 

 water's edge, between late autumn and spring. 

 The Common and weed-grown vacant lots are 

 not owned by house sparrows alone, conspicuous 

 as those immigrants are. A Sunday afternoon 

 in May spent in the groves and fields of the 

 suburbs gives acquaintance with more species 



