xvn OUTDOOR AND INDOOR ORNITHOLOGY 405 



you have no knowledge of a bird's anatomy. To 

 know that a bird never tumbles off his perch during 

 sleep is something ; it is well to go on to a know- 

 ledge of the machinery which keeps him there. 

 When you see that a bird's neck is more supple than 

 a snake, you wish to see the joint which allows such 

 free play in all directions. An understanding of 

 the problems of classification is impossible to an 

 ornithologist who has not penetrated beyond the 

 outside. The bird's whole life depends upon his 

 anatomy, and to try to study the former without the 

 latter is somewhat like attempting the study of a 

 people's history without the study of the people 

 themselves. It will not do to stop short at the 

 skeleton. You must get dead specimens and dissect 

 them ; see the enormous size of the great pectoral 

 muscles; inflate the air-sacks and see how spacious 

 they are and how small in comparison are the lungs ; 

 how the heart is far superior to a reptile's, different 

 also from a man's, and yet equally efficient ; how the 

 head is almost a feather-weight, and how the gizzard 

 has taken the place of the grinders that would have 

 burdened it ; see what a complexity of muscles 

 serves to bring about the perfect adjustment of the 

 wing to every need. These and hundreds of things 

 besides can only be realised by the aid of dissection. 

 You can only half understand what you read on a 

 subject such as this. When you have seen a good 

 deal with your own eyes, you can realise not that 

 only, but more of the same nature that you learn from 

 books. But to trust entirely to the eyes of others for 

 your knowledge of anatomy is as foolish as it is to 



