Tue Stupy oF Birp LIFE. 15h 
a long time before the ordinary ornithologist has arrived at the 
requisite knowledge of the life-history of the birds around him 
to warrant him in going further afield. Perhaps this is, or 
appears to be, a greater failing in the earlier stages of the 
-ornithologist’s career than later on. 
For variety there is ample room for “I think’’ in such 
speculations as to why an old rook’s bill is bare of feathers at 
the base (if it always is) and such like. Several opinions he can 
find already expressed. Or why the middle claw of the Nightjar 
is serrated and so on. In all such “TI think”’ is all that the 
greatest expert very often can say absolutely and definitely, 
though undoubtedly he can give good reasons or apparently good 
ones for the faith that is in him, whereas the other cannot. 
I think it right to add the truism that no man ought to give 
an opinion about anything unless he can give some valid reason 
for holding that opinion. “It is so because iit is so’ is a method. 
of argument which is the prerogative of the fair sex only. 
The ornithologist then must not remain satisfied until by 
some means or other an expert has given his pronouncement. 
He must never mind risking everything by getting the opinion of 
an expert finally; risking the unkind remarks of his. friends who 
have given him information which he has not accepted ; the cold 
scorn of the pages of the well-marked book; the idle complaints. 
of the self-styled ornithologist when he hears that expert’s 
opinion and finds it totally contrary to all he has said. 
In nearly every case the utmost he can hope for is the 
identification of that which is lifeless. Should he know an 
expert, however, to whom he can show his bird alive in its 
natural haunts, then, when it is identified, the identification is of 
far greater value (to him), as he has its flight, song, perhaps, 
call-notes, habits, and various other aids to help him in im- 
pressing it on his mind. 
A “dead bird’’ expert is practically useless in this latter 
case, since he knows the bird when dead only and apart from 
their lives, ways, and habits, except in so far as he has read 
about them, and thus he is in much the same position with 
regard to them when alive as a man who has only read how to: 
ride is with regard to the horse he would mount. 
All this applies to the birds difficult of identification only. 
Many he will be able to identify from good drawings, not neces- 
