44 Oxford: Spring and Early Summer. 



out the three different species of Willow-wrens, 

 which he says he has discovered' T Nothing but 

 a personal acquaintance a friendship, as I must 

 call it in my own case with these little birds, 

 as they live their every-clay life among us, will 

 suffice to fix the individuality of each species in 

 the mind ; not even the best plates in a book, 

 or the faded and lifeless figures in a museum. 

 You may shoot and dissect them, and study them 

 as you would study and label a set of fossils : but 

 a bird is a living thing, and you will never really 

 know him till you fully understand how he lives. 

 Let us imagine ourselves taking a stroll into 

 the Parks with the object of seeing these eight 

 birds, not as skeletons, but as living realities. 

 The first to present themselves to eye and ear 

 will be the two species of the second group, 

 which may roughly be described (so far at least 

 as England is concerned) as containing Tree- 

 warblers. From the tall trees in St. John's 



1 The three species were the Wood-warbler, Phylloscopus 

 sibilatrix (Bechst), Willow-warbler, Ph. trochilus (Linn.), and 

 Chiff-chaff, Ph. collybita (Viell.). Markwick declares that he 

 could not distinguish the first of these from the other two. 



