10 INTRODUCTION. 



fish in the brook, along the margin of which a fam- 

 ily of sandpipers were hunting down aquatic insects, 

 while some swallows which skimmed along on the 

 wing were ready to dart upon the flies which es- 

 caped from these swiftfooted pedestrians ; he saw 

 bank-swallows burrowing in the bank to shelter 

 their nests from bad weather and worse enemies; he 

 saw a heron take her patient stand at a bend of the 

 river to watch for a passing fish, and, after a suc- 

 cessful capture, fly off with her prey to her nest in 

 the woods ; and he saw a troop of starlings as nu- 

 merous as a swarm of bees ; the same phenome- 

 non which nearly three thousand years before had 

 afforded Homer a fine poetical simile for a troop 

 of fugitive warriors. " So it is," the narrative con- 

 cludes ; " one man walks through the world with 

 his eyes open, and another with them shut ; and 

 upon this difference depends all the superiority of 

 knowledge the one acquires above the other." 



There are few persons, even of the well-informed, 

 who, like the schoolboy with "his eyes open," 

 take an interest in such common occurrences as a 

 wheatear hopping over stones, or a swallow hawk- 

 ing for flies over a brook. A taste for natural ob- 

 jects must be awakened and cultivated before en- 

 joyment can be derived from the casual observation 

 (if study be a term too strong and repulsive) of the 

 works of creation, either in their picturesque and 

 poetical aspects, or in their beautiful adaptation to 

 their various purposes. But when an interest in 

 natural productions has been once excited, we may 

 confidently promise that the sources of pleasure will 

 become exhaustless, and every walk, however short, 

 will produce, like the ramble of the curious school- 

 boy, something which has not been observed be- 

 fore. 



When Alexander Wilson, the celebrated writer 

 on the Birds of the United States, commenced his 

 arduous task of examining every bird of that country 



