192 VIRGINIA 



self, should be shown a bird which Dr. Rives 

 the ornithologist of the state, we may 

 fairly call him had never seen within the 

 state limits. But it was not for me to com- 

 plain ; and for that matter, it is nothing new 

 to say that it takes a green hand to make 

 discoveries. I knew a man, only a few 

 years ago, who, one season, was so unin- 

 structed that he called me out to see a Hens- 

 low's bunting, which proved to be a song 

 sparrow ; but the very next year he found a 

 snowbird summering a few miles from Bos- 

 ton (there was no mistake this time), a 

 thing utterly without precedent. In the 

 same way, I knew of one lad who discovered 

 a brown thrasher wintering in Massachusetts, 

 the only recorded instance ; and of another 

 who went to an ornithologist of experience 

 begging him to come into the woods and see 

 a most wonderful many-colored bird, which 

 turned out, to the experienced man's aston- 

 ishment, to be nothing less rare than a non- 

 pareil bunting ! Providence favors the be- 

 ginner, or so it seems ; and the beginner, 

 on his part, is prepared to be favored, because 

 to him everything is worth looking at. 

 Dr. Rives's catalogue helped me to a some- 



