142 ANNALS OF BIRD LIFE. 



no mean rivals of man himself. There is much in 

 the ways of birds not yet understood by man. 

 We are too prone to credit them with a far less 

 amount of mental capacity than is justly their due, 

 and to blind ourselves to their marvellous and 

 varied accomplishments, simply because we do 

 not know sufficient about their ways to com- 

 prehend their meaning. The fault lies with us. 

 Too long have we looked upon birds as so 

 much material for the building up and creating 

 a mass of " scientific " literature which is as dry 

 and uninteresting as it is useless. Too long have 

 we been content to think that the history of a 

 bird begins and ends with a study of its dried 

 skin. When we replace the Life behind the 

 feathers with a stuffing of cotton wool, we take 

 away the most charming part of the whole story 

 which the bird has to tell. A new era is dawning. 

 The dead birds have had their day, and naturalists 

 are beginning to wake up to the fact that the 

 living birds are infinitely more interesting, more 

 wonderful, and more beautiful. 



The various little ways of birds prove un- 

 doubtedly that our feathered friends do not pass 

 the automatic and monotonous existence we are 

 so apt to presume they do, and that their little 

 lives are brightened and made happy by emotions, 

 and passions, and desires, which conduce enor- 

 mously to the pleasures of their own being, as 

 well as to those of ourselves in studying and 

 observing them. 



