32 



INTRODUCTION. 



man, I prefer beginning with the bird which soars highest, 

 reversing the order of man's history ; for he has risen from blind 

 barbarism to enlightened civilization — from the worship of idols 

 to the worship of a myth — and still progressing in his belief of a 

 Deity, which will only culminate in the great simplicity of 

 knowing the truth and reverencing the one living and true God, 

 as seen in Nature around us, and in the science of eternal order, 

 for true knowledge consists in knowing that the eternal source 

 of all life is unsearchable by man ; but true and infinite though 

 unfathomable and unknown; and no less true because the eternal 

 origin of all order and of all existence is as the bottom of the 

 sea ; yet no less real although no sounding plummet can reach it. 

 But, although man has risen from barbarity up to civilization 

 — from a schoolboy to a professor; from an apprentice to a 

 master — a golden eagle has not sprung from the egg of a wren, 

 or learned to soar with the wing of a goose, for each is true to 

 its own species, no matter what Darwin may say, without 

 interfering with his great scientific theory. So I may as well 

 begin with a golden eagle as with a golden crested wren. 



Technical Names. 



Regarding the meaning of species, genus, genera, family, and 

 order, some of my young readers may like to know without 

 turning up their dictionary. Therefore, to them I say that 

 species means every individual bird in creation ; for instance, a 

 lark is one species ; a linnet is another ; a blackbird another ; a 

 rook another, and so on, or each one is a species in that class of 

 creatures called birds. 



A genus is a group of these birds, so closely resembling each 

 other as hardly to be mistaken — as the raven, the carrion crow, 

 the hooded crow, the rook, and jackdaw. These combined form 

 the genus called Corvus, which means, in British, crow. The 

 plural of Corvus is Corvince, as genera is plural of genus. 



Corresponding with the Latin generic, name of Corvus, we 

 have their Latin specific names of Corax, Corone, Comix, 

 Frugilegus, and Mo?iedula, which, in full, read thus : Corvus 

 Corax, Corvus Corone, Corvus Comix, Corvus Frugilegus, and 

 Corvus Monedula, and which, in British, simply means raven 

 crow, carrion crow, hoody crow, rook crow, and daw crow. 

 These are the specific and generic names joined, both in Latin 

 and in British. My meaning will be seen still plainer by calling 



