282 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



take a second ? Occasionally we have evidence 

 in a volume that many steps have been taken, 

 as in " Origin of Species," but how generally 

 are the books set before us but bundles of 

 finger-posts, and these not always set in the 

 right directions ! To tell yourself or another 

 that frogs leap and snakes creep is to publish 

 yourself as yet in an infant class, if you cannot 

 back your assertion with at least the mechanics 

 of leaping and creeping. If your own desire 

 leads no farther than the witnessing of the act, 

 you can never hope to be a naturalist. Strange 

 indeed are some of the entries made in note- 

 books. A list of forty birds seen in one day is 

 now lying before me, with not one word of 

 comment concerning a single specimen. Better 

 to have spent the whole day with an English 

 sparrow. " It is a contribution to geographical 

 distribution," says one. " The date shows that 

 these birds are summer residents, if not all-the- 

 year-round birds," says another. "Forty birds 

 seen and nothing more," I reply. As to geo- 

 graphical distribution, it has been done to death, 

 and always will be, seeing it is easy and the list- 

 makers outnumber observers in a wide sense ; 



