CHAPTER IV. 



REGISTRATION AND LABELLING. 



§2G. A MERE OUTLINE of a field naturalist's duties would be 

 inexcusabl}^ incomplete without mention of these important 

 matters ; and, because so much of the business of collecting 

 must be left to be acquired in the school of experience, I am 

 the more anxious to give explicit directions whenever, as in 

 this instance, it is possible to do so. 



§27. Record tour observations daily. In one sense the 

 specimens themselves are your record — prima facie evidence 

 of your industry and ability ; and if labelled, as I shall presently 

 advise, they tell no small part of the whole story. But this is 

 not enough ; indeed, I am not sure that an ably conducted or- 

 nithological journal is not the better half of your operations. 

 Under your editorship of labelling specimens tell what they 

 know al)out themselves ; but you can tell much more yourself. 

 Let us look at a day's work : — You have shot and skinned so 

 many birds and laid them away labelled. You have made ob- 

 servations about them before shooting, and have observed a 

 number of birds that you did not shoot. Y^'ou have items of 

 haunts and habits, abundance or scarcity ; of manners and ac- 

 tions under special circumstances, as of pairing, nesting, lay- 

 ing, rearing young ; feeding, migrating and what not ; various 

 notes of birds are still ringing in your ears ; and finally, you 

 may have noted the absence ^f species you saw awhile before, 

 or had expected to occur in your vicinity. Meteorological and 

 topographical items, especially when travelling, are often of 

 great assistance in explaining the occurrences and actions of 

 birds. Now you know these things, but very likely no one else 

 does ; and you know them at the time, but you will not recollect 

 a tithe of them in a few weeks or months, to say nothing of 

 years. Don't trust your memorj^ ; it will trip you up ; what 

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