AN IMPRESSION OF AXE EDGE 117 



of shade," or a bectlinp: cliff on the coast of Conncmara, 

 or a boggy moor or marsh in the Shcthmds or Orkneys, 

 or in "utmost Kilda's lonely isle." They must be 

 young, or, at all events, physically tough, and unless 

 they can make it pay i)y procuring specimens for their 

 numerous friends (dealers and collectors all) they must 

 have money enough to exist without work. These being 

 the conditions, it is not strange that this wide-wandering, 

 perpetual-holiday band should, if we exclude the 

 suspects, be a small one and as enthusiastic in their 

 pursuit as other open-air men are apt to be about hunting 

 the fox, golfing, fishing, cricketing, shooting, motoring, 

 and other forms of sport. 



Call them sportsmen, ornithologists, or bird-lovers 

 pure and simple, I envy them their magnificent freedom 

 and could ask for no happier life than theirs. It is 

 like that of the person whose delight is in anthropology 

 in passing from land to land, seeing many and various 

 races of men, visiting remote districts whose inhabitants 

 through long centuries of isolation have preserv'ed the 

 features and mental characteristics of their remote 

 progenitors. To pursue wild birds in that way — to 

 follow knowledge like a sinking star, to be and to know 

 much until I became a name for always wandering with 

 a hungry heart — that was my one desire ; but alas ! it 

 was never in my power. Compared w^ith the disen- 

 cumbered ones I am like an ordinary man, walking on 

 the earth, to men of lighter bodies and nimbler minds 

 who have found out how to fly and are like birds chasing 

 birds. 



