HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 289 



This knowledge of the habits of birds, which at 

 once lets you into their little secrets, is only to be 

 obtained by a constant attention to the notes and 

 the habits of the feathered tribes in the open air. 

 It can never be learned in the solitude of the closet. 

 Those naturalists who pass nearly the whole of 

 their time in their study have it not in their 

 power to produce a work of real merit. On the 

 contrary, it too often happens that they do (most 

 unintentionally, no doubt) a great deal of harm to 

 science. Travellers, and now and then a foreigner, 

 come to them, and desire that they will revise, or 

 concoct, or prepare a work for the press. They 

 comply with the request. But, having little or no 

 knowledge themselves of the real habits of birds, 

 they do not perceive the numberless faults in the 

 pages which they are requested to prepare for the 

 public eye. Hence it is that errors innumerable 

 stare us in the face, when we open books which 

 profess to treat on the nature and the habits of 

 birds. 



What a world we live in ! say I, when I read 

 tkat turkey-cocks will break all the eggs of the fe- 

 males, for the purpose of protracting their future 

 frolics ; and that another species of bird flies away 

 from the nest, when the egg is hatched, in order 

 to procure food for the young one. 



I tremble for the welfare of ornithology, when I 

 am informed that the ornithologist, now-a-days, is 

 not expected to climb lofty trees and precipices, in 

 order to ascertain whether the birds which fre- 



