116 NATUBAL HISTOEY SKETCHES. 



they are intended. To enable the stranger to form some 

 slight idea of the ornithology of this country, and the 

 bushman, if he cares at all about it, to distinguish one 

 bird from another, I have noticed above 180 different 

 species which have passed through my hands, and, with 

 the exception of less than a dozen, I have shot specimens 

 of every one myself. 



No one has better opportunities of studying nature 

 than the sportsman, whose life is spent in out-door pur- 

 suits ; and if such men would only pay a little attention 

 to the subject, and note down anything that struck them 

 as worthy of notice in the habits of the animals and 

 birds which are constantly before their eyes, what a fund 

 of useful information might be collected. But, unfor- 

 tunately, it rarely happens that either the sportsman or 

 gamekeeper cares anything except about those very birds 

 or animals which are the immediate objects of their pur- 

 suit, and scarcely even know the names, much more the 

 habits, of the commoner species, which are of no value 

 for the chase. 



The study of ornithology has always been a favourite one 

 with me, and is perhaps the only one of the innocent plea- 

 sures of youth which follows a man into maturer years, and 

 upon which he can look back, in the decline of life, with feel- 

 ings of pure and unalloyed joy. The greatest charm at- 

 tendant upon this study is, that there is no monotony in its 

 pursuit, no void or blank in the ornithologist's year. His 

 time is constantly occupied ; as soon as one class of birds 

 leaves, another arrives ; and these migrations are, without 



