A LABRADOR SPRING 



bird-students and their name is legion, both 

 masculine and feminine that it is far better to 

 be silent or confess ignorance than to affirm 

 knowledge unless that knowledge is based on 

 sound observation. It is to be regretted that 

 too many ardent bird-students are not only 

 lacking in powers of observation and in ap- 

 preciation of the scientific value of truth, but 

 also that they possess imaginations which 

 lead them to see what the text-books have given 

 them to expect. Above all they should avoid 

 embarrassing ornithologists by recording in 

 print imperfect and erroneous observations, and 

 they should remember that by so doing they 

 discredit not only themselves but the whole class 

 of gunless observers. 



Turn we now, as dear old Professor Shaler 

 used to say, to another subject. Instantaneous 

 photography shows that birds extend the 

 bastard wing just as they alight. The bastard 

 wing consists of a few stiff feathers attached to 

 the so-called thumb on the front edge of the 

 bird's wing. Ordinarily it lies flat and is not 

 seen, but just as the bird alights from a flight 

 it is extended so as to be partially detached 

 from the main wing. In the domestic pigeon 



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