NATURAL HISTORY. 27 



tails. Natural history is one of the best fields in which 

 to acquire this habit of ready analysis, because it has 

 attractions which more abstract or more artificial 

 studies do not possess ; and one of the most inviting 

 departments of natural history, and therefore, one of 

 the best for beginners, is the study of birds ; but to 

 be studied successfully, they must be studied in their 

 structure, their actions, their localities, and relations, 

 and not as so many portions of mere matter of which 

 size, shape, and colour, form the whole story. 



Starling 



