THE ARTISTS BIRDS. 181 



that which depicts birds and bird-life. As a conse- 

 quence,, many good pictures have been and continue 

 to be utterly spoiled where the painter rashly essays 

 to take birds as part of his subject. His faults may 

 be in two directions. Either from his ignorance of 

 the bird's anatomy, the structure and arrangement 

 of its feathers, and the mechanical laws that govern 

 the movements of its legs and wings, his drawings 

 may be hopelessly wrong ; or, having no knowledge 

 of the habits, haunts, and characteristics of the 

 species he elects to paint, he falls into errors of 

 detail, sufficient to brand his work as faithless to 

 nature. The cause of much of this inaccuracy is 

 that artists are too fond of painting their birds from 

 stuffed specimens, often wretchedly mounted ; or, 

 which is more unpardonable still, of copying them 

 from books on ornithology, which in nine cases 

 out of ten are full of those very errors which 

 they as artists should seek to avoid by going to 

 .Nature for their inspirations. As the artist goes 

 to Nature for his rocks and trees and water and 

 sky, so he must seek her for his birds. The 

 artist must become a naturalist as well if he 

 wishes to acquire those skilful touches which imbue 

 with life the birds and beasts he puts upon his 

 canvas. Art and Nature are inseparable ; and the 



