144 THE BIRD WATCHER 
is generally more Ai in combination with the 
sportsman, but it seems to me that as either element 
gains ground the other weakens, so that if a man is 
really and truly a naturalist the passion of killing— 
and also of collecting—tends to pass into that of 
observing. When the latter has become very strong 
in such a man, so that he is interested in the more 
minute and intricate things in the lives of animals— 
in their domesticities and affections, their instincts, 
their intelligence and psychology generally, and with 
the questions and problems presented by all of these 
—he is then, I believe, either no more a sportsman 
or very little of one, though, perhaps, he may not care 
to admit this to his old sporting friends. In a word, 
the two things—observation of life and the taking of 
it—are opposed to each other, though they may be 
often combined in one and the same man. But whilst 
the naturalist—by virtue of our savage ancestry—-has 
almost always something of the sportsman in his 
composition, the sportsman has, for his part, little or 
nothing of the naturalist. I should never expect the 
same man to be great in both departments, and I be- 
lieve that a list of names would support this contention. 
By ‘‘sportsman,” however, I understand a man who 
kills animals primarily on account of the pleasurable 
sensations which he experiences in so doing. He who 
really only kills or collects for the purpose of increasing 
knowledge (so he calls his collection) is no sportsman, 
in my opinion—though I think he does a great deal 
more harm than if he were one. The collector I look 
