1 8 Birds of Oregon and Washington 



to catalogue our " finds," or to enter a rivalry as 

 to who knows the most varieties or can tell the 

 most about the birds of our own and other locali- 

 ties. Certainly all education should tend to 

 ennoble character and furnish the sources of the 

 highest happiness. If this be the end sought, 

 then a sympathetic and aesthetic interest is the 

 thing we must seek to get and give, in our pur- 

 suit of knowledge of birds. 



Indeed, it is a pursuit fairly dangerous to our 

 own possible enjoyment, when we set out with 

 opera-glass and note-book to name and cata- 

 logue the birds, lest we shall be less satisfied to 

 listen with exquisite satisfaction to some superb 

 singer, than to get his description in our note- 

 books. It is not a tithe as important that we 

 should know the name and habits of a bird as 

 that we should answer his ecstasy of song with 

 ecstasy of delight. Dr. Henry van Dyke has 

 given us a motto for the societies which are op- 

 posing the heartless and harmful practice of 

 using birds for millinery purposes. It is : " A 

 bird in the bush is worth ten in the hat." 

 Should not every bird-student have at the begin- 

 ning of his note-book some sentiment like this ? 



