1 68 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



atory, and destined for the same profession, which is 

 said to have been hereditary in the family. If you 

 look at a good map of Greece, you will see that this 

 little town of Stageirus is placed in a most favourable 

 position for a naturalist. It lies on a sea abounding 

 in fish ; above it rise the wooded heights of the 

 eastern coast of the Chalcidic peninsula on which it 

 stands ; only a few miles distant is the river Strymon, 

 which was so famous for water- and marsh-loving 

 birds, as to give its name as a perpetual epithet to at 

 least one species. Straight across the sea from Egypt 

 and the Soudan came, and still come every spring, 

 multitudinous armies of migrating birds ; they rest 

 awhile about these rivers of the Thracian coast, 

 and then pursue their way northwards, crossing the 

 Balkan Mountains into the plains of the Danube 

 and Eussia, to return again in the autumn. And of 

 course for an inquiring naturalist a seaport town is 

 always a desirable place ; for here come sailors from 

 foreign lands with tales of strange birds and beasts 

 and plants, specimens of which they sometimes bring 

 home with them. We may be sure that the physician, 

 Aristotle's father, made use of the sailors to increase 

 not only his pharmacopoeia, but his knowledge of the 

 world and its contents ; and we may be sure that 

 young Aristotle too was quick to profit by these 

 chances. 



But a boy with a mind like Aristotle's was not 



