134 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



in this country ; and, in my opinion, the professional 

 naturalists are largely responsible for rendering con- 

 fusion worse confused. The vast multitude of tiny 

 birds, ranging in size from that of a sparrow to that 

 of a tit, cannot, with any degree of clearness, be split 

 up into scores of families or groups; and I shall take 

 it upon myself to say, that half-a-dozen families at 

 most is quite sufficient to relegate them to. The 

 pipits and warblers are so closely allied to the American 

 ground and swamp sparrows, that no amount of profes- 

 sional jargon will prevail upon me to acknowledge any 

 material difference between them. In fact no other 

 term than warblers, or better still finches, is wanted 

 for the whole genus. Then again, take the American 

 bluebirds. Their appearance, habits, food, and the 

 colouration, all prove them to be thrushes ; but so 

 much as hint to an American naturalist that they are 

 not a distinctly New World group, entirely unallied 

 to anything European, and you will make him furious. 

 His European cousin will also do a bit of professional 

 capering at the assertion. I, however, think that 

 habit and external appearance count for a great deal ; 

 and I am not sure that the cut-and-dried specimen- 

 stuffer, who in all probability has never seen the birds 

 in their native haunts, or indeed, even alive, is alto- 

 gether qualified to absolutely classify them. At any 

 rate I am quite convinced that there is a large 

 number of small birds in this country (the whole of 

 America, I mean), split up into families between which 

 there is no marked difierence, if, indeed, any dilFer- 

 ence at all, other than the fad of their cataloguers. 

 And the separating these families from their European 

 allies is an even more ridiculous anomaly. 



This is a digression ; but I have an object in making 

 it, for I do not accept the classification now in vogue 

 with European ornithologists, stUl less that of Americans. 

 Whatever value the professional naturalists may put on 



I 



