AND OTHER BIRDS 3 



tliiiik it is, like the fear of the Lord, the begiuning 

 of wisdom. Perhaps shooting is to be condemned, 

 ])ut it is certain that species to which an intel- 

 ligent commercial interest has become attached 

 are most sure of sui'vival. Perhaps the taking 

 of life in any way is to be condenmed, but if 

 Humming Birds and Birds of Paradise were 

 bred for the market, as capons and beeves are 

 bred, the most lovely sj)ecies of birds would 

 be as safe to the race as barndoor fowls. 



Indeed, I often think that birds have been but 

 ill served by their friends and are unfor- 

 tunate in their literature, ^tuch of it is childish, 

 much of it is maudlin. There are the writers 

 whose science is, I sometimes suspect, only a 

 knowledge of Latin names, and who chill their 

 theme with a foreign nomenclature. There 

 are folk like nwself, who can see perhaps, 

 but whose observation is little better, alas, 

 than the observation of the keen-eyed savage, and 

 who lack the special training and wide compara- 

 tive knowledge which alone can truly infoi'm and 

 without which the s])i'ings of action can hardly 

 be quite fully understood. Lastly, there are the 

 great Avorkers in the field of ornithology — men 

 who devote a lifetime to a single branch of the 

 subject— and to them each student's hat must 

 rise in honour and respect. The intellect is often 

 apt to l3urn the emotions out, or maybe they do 

 not often co-exist with equal force in the same 

 individual, but it was one who could both think 

 and feel who mourned over the condition of our 

 New Zealand avifauna as one that ''must grieve 

 to the utmost everv ornithologist who cares for 

 more than the stutfed skin of a bird on a shelf." 



Diminution in the numbers of many species is 



