238 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



beginner, anxious to possess a reliable work, and yet uncertain 

 what it should be, T would certainly recommend Morris the 

 larger edition, if it can be afforded (and it is sometimes to 

 be had cheaply second-hand) ; and if not, then the lesser one. 

 To Harrison Weir the ornithologist owes a debt of grati- 

 tude, and the services of the Rev. J. Gr. Wood in popular- 

 izing the science will not be forgotten. Mr. Smiles, in his 

 " Life of a Scotch Naturalist," has done a good deed in 

 showing the enthusiasm is no expensive hobby, but one that 

 can brighten and ennoble the humblest existence. To Mr. 

 B. Jeffries we look for some delightful sketches of natural 

 history and rural life, in a vein that has been too much 

 neglected of late; and so on through more well-known names 

 and deserving works than we can find space to mention. 



These have all, so far, been the student writer, the natu- 

 ralists of pen and scapula ; but there are others the natu- 

 ralists of gun and pen, whose writings are at least as 

 entertaining, and indeed, sometimes more valuable to the 

 cause of sterling science than the manual of the savant whose 

 happy hunting-ground is the labour of his predecessors, and 

 who never saw half the birds he described unticketed or full 

 of any sort of individuality but such as arsenical soap and 

 wire can supply. 



If, as we have seen, the monkish writers attempted 

 a little occasional descriptive ornithology, it was not long 

 after this that the first quaint attempts were made at direct- 

 ing the " fowler " in his art. Not perhaps the first, but still 

 an early essay, is the " Boke of St. Alban's, containing 

 treatises on hawking, hunting, and cote armour," printed in 

 1486 by Caxton. 



There is a curious little book on " Hunger's Prevention," 

 by one Gurvas Markham, and some others such. But the 

 handler of modern arms of precision does not become at 

 home, or begin to "feel the bottom," until he gets amongst 

 such books as Squire Osbaldiston's "British Sportsman," 





