Preface ix 



duced with such rigid faithfulness and conspicuous effect that 

 what are in fact merest minute details assume a wholly false 

 proportion, mislead the eye, and disguise the whole picture. 

 True, these things are actually there ; but the human eye enjoys 

 a faculty (which the camera does not) of selecting its objective 

 and iQ-norino- or reducing; to its correct relative value each 

 extrinsic detail ; of looking, as it were, through obstacles and 

 concentrating its power upon the one main subject of study. 



The portrayal of wildfowl presents a peculiar difficulty. This 

 group differs in two essential characters from the rest of the 

 bird-world. Though clad in feathers, yet those feathers are not 

 " feathery." Kather may they be described as a steely water- 

 tight encasement, as distinct from the covering, say of game-birds 

 as mackintosh differs from satin. Each plume possesses a com- 

 pactness of web and firmness of texture that combine to produce 

 a rigidity, and this, it so happens, both in form and colour. For 

 in this group the colours, too, or patterns of colour, are clean-cut, 

 the contrasts strong and sharply defined. The plumage of wild- 

 fowl, in short, is characterised by lack of subdued tints and half- 

 tones. That is its beauty and its glory ; but the fact presents a 

 stumbliug-block to treatment, especially in colour. 



The difficulty follows consequentially. Subjects of such char- 

 acter and crude coloration defy accustomed methods. That is not 

 the fault of the artist ; rather it reveals the limitations of Art. 

 Just as in landscape distance ever demands an "atmosphere' 

 more or less obliterative of distinctive detail afar (though such 

 detail may be visible to non-artistic eyesight miles away), so in 

 birds of sharply contrasted colouring the needed effect can only 

 (it would appear) be attained by processes of softening which are 

 not, in fact, correct, and which ruin the real picture as designed 

 by Nature. 



No wild bird (and wildfowl least of all) can be portrayed from 

 captive specimens — still less from bedraggled corpses selected in 

 Leadenhall market. In the latter every essential feature has 

 disappeared. The ruffled remains resemble the beauty of their 

 originals only as a dish-clout may recall some previous existence 



