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CHAPTER X. 



QUILLS AND FEATHERS. 



SOME NOTES ON BIRD BOOKS. 



THERE would scarcely be a better exercise for any one who 

 might be inclined to doubt the abiding popularity of matters 

 of ornithology and sport with the British public, than to 

 take a short expedition into the literature of the subject. 

 This has accumulated and still accumulates in a manner that 

 is very gratifying to those who love the country side, but 

 sorely perplexing to the assimilator who would reduce the 

 chaotic mass of information into some reasonable form and 

 order. To index everything that has been written upon 

 ornithology for even the last hundred years would be to 

 compile a vast catalogue, reaching the dignity of a portly 

 encyclopaedia, and to own. all these various works in every 

 written tongue, were it possible, would be to possess a mag- 

 nificent but overwhelming library. 



One thing simplifies the problem, and this is that the best 

 works on this subject are without question amongst the most 

 modern. There are no classics in ornithology. The occa- 

 sional allusions in remote writers to the subject are often 

 gems of description extraordinarily pithy and pointed because 

 they came from direct, unprejudiced observation. What, for 

 instance, could be more fascinatingly real than Virgil's ac- 

 count of a rock dove breaking from her cavern nest ? 



" Quails spelunca subito commota Columba, 

 Cui domus," etc. 



