JUNE 
Waa) VERY field ornithologist has more 
fy} or less of an ambition to beat his 
| own record (and everyone’s else), 
= ‘in the number of species he has 
found in a given time or in a certain locality. 
It is quite useless to ridicule or ignore this im- 
pulse, which is sometimes violent enough to be 
properly called a distemper. It is involved in 
his system as constitutionally as ever measles or 
mumps were imbedded in his body—with the 
difference, however, that having once ‘‘ broken 
out,’’ it is extremely doubtful whether he ever 
fully recovers fromit. However one may smile 
at the sometimes childish aspect of such an am- 
bition, he will do well to avoid a too contempt- 
uous tone in speaking of it, for the same trait, 
in some one of its thousand manifestations, is 
discernible in every mind, and is essentially 
that propensity to which the world is chiefly 
indebted for all its advancement in the arts and 
sciences. 
171 
