122 BIRD-LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



or a mounted specimen. To a very great extent 

 the old-time cabinet naturalist has been super- 

 seded by the open-air observer, with the inevitable 

 result that endless errors and fables respecting the 

 habits of birds have been swept away. It was a 

 cabinet fable that the long-legged Flamingo sat 

 astride its cone-like nest. The field naturalist 

 taught us the truth, although the fiction, as is 

 generally the case, died hard. It would seem 

 that the natural deportment of birds is surrounded 

 with similar ignorance, and this only the field 

 naturalist, with his binocular and camera, and his 

 patient and persistent observation, will be able in 

 time to dispel. 



