INTKODUCTION xv. 



that any one who shoots a rare bird in a remote part of the 

 country should despatch it to a competent authority for 

 identification, if possible on the day on which it has been 

 secured, so that its occurrence may be properly substan- 

 tiated. 



And, lastly, a word on collecting in general. A naturalist 

 who kills for the mere sake of collecting deserves to rank 

 lower than one who does not collect at all. And yet one might 

 venture to say that there are private museums throughout 

 the country, well stocked with carefully-mounted specimens, 

 which have been formed for no special purpose whatso- 

 ever. This aimless method of collecting is far too common 

 a practice. 



The sentiments expressed by the late Professor Elliott 

 Coues bear out these remarks : " Collecting stands much in 

 the same relation to ornithology that the useful and indis- 

 pensable office of an apothecary bears to the duties of a 

 physician. A field-naturalist is always more or less of a 

 collector; the latter is sometimes found to know almost 

 nothing of natural history worth knowing. The true 

 ornithologist goes out to study birds alive and destroys 

 some of them simply because that is the only way of 

 learning their structure and technical characters. There 

 is much more about a bird that can be discovered in its 

 dead body how much more, then, than can be found out 

 from its stuffed skin ! In my humble opinion the man 

 who only gathers birds, as a miser money, to swell his 

 cabinet, and that other man who gloats, as miser-like, over 

 the same hoard, both work on a plane far beneath where 

 the enlightened naturalist stands. One looks at Nature, 

 and never knows that she is beautiful ; the other knows 

 she is beautiful, as even a corpse may be ; the naturalist 

 catches her sentient expression, and knows how beautiful 

 she is ! I would have you to know and love her ; for fairer 

 mistress never swayed the heart of man. Aim high! 

 press on, and leave the half-way house of mere collector- 

 ship far behind in your pursuit of a delightful study, nor 

 fancy the closet its goal." 



