2 BIRDS AND MAN 



grimy and depressing appearance. On the floor 

 are planted grasses, sedges, and miniature bushes, 

 made of tin or zinc and then dipped in a bucket of 

 green paint. In the chapter referred to it was said, 

 " When the eye closes in death, the bird, except to 

 the naturalist, becomes a mere bundle of dead 

 feathers ; crystal globes may be put into the empty 

 sockets, and a bold life-imitating attitude given to 

 the stuffed specimen, but the vitreous orbs shoot 

 forth no lifelike glances : the ' passion and the life 

 whose fountains are within ' have vanished, and 

 the best work of the taxidermist, who has given a 

 life to his bastard art, produces in the mind only 

 sensations of irritation and disgust." 



That, in the last clause, was wrongly writ. It 

 should have been my mind, and the minds of those 

 who, knowing living birds intimately as I do, have 

 the same feeling about them. 



This, then, being my feeling about stuffed birds, 

 set up in their " natural surroundings," I very natur- 

 ally avoid the places where they are exhibited. At 

 Brighton, for instance, on many occasions when I 

 have visited and stayed in that town, there was no 

 inclination to see the Booth Collection, which is 

 supposed to be an ideal collection of British birds ; 

 and we know it was the life-work of a zealous orni- 



