Mr. Chickadee 109 



one, and their effect is confusing and in many 

 ways injurious to the mind, especially to the young. 

 A multitude of specimens are brought before the 

 sight, each and every one a falsification and degra- 

 dation of nature, and the impression left is of an 

 assemblage, or mob, of incongruous forms, and 

 of a confusion of colors." 



"These dreary remnants of dead things set be- 

 fore them as restorations and as semblances of 

 life, produce a profoundly depressing effect." 

 "The best work of the taxidermist, who has given 

 a lifetime to his bastard art, produces in the mind 

 only sensations of irritation and disgust." From 

 the above extracts from his writings, it is easy 

 to get his point of view with regard to the stuffed 

 specimen as unnecessary and useless in the study 

 of the birds he knew from a close and extended 

 personal relation in their natural environment. It 

 is scarcely putting it too strongly to say that 

 according to his system of theology the collector 

 stood for the devil himself. 



The difference between a "Bird Lover" and an 

 "Ornithologist" is much the same as between a 

 "Demonstrator of Anatomy" and a "Family 

 Physician," one gains his facts from death, the 

 dissection of a dead body, the other from life, 

 the study of a living creature. Follow in the foot- 

 steps of the Ornithologist, pure and simple, and 

 they will lead you to a shamble, a Valley of 



