A NATIVE NATURALIST 247 



ing it a poor joke on my part, and when I smiled at 

 his expression he was more put out than ever. But I 

 could not help admiring him as he stood there staring 

 into my face. He had put down his spade when our 

 talk began ; his coat was off, his cloudy old brown 

 waistcoat unbuttoned, his blue cotton shirt-sleeves 

 rolled up to the elbows, his hands and arms smeared 

 with dried clay a grand figure of a man with the 

 white beard mixed with a little red falling to his 

 waist, his grey old shapeless felt hat thrust back on 

 his head and his long hair down to his shoulders. 



He assured me with dignity that if there was a 

 bird he was familiar with it was the chaffinch, that as 

 a person born and bred in the country he could not 

 make a mistake about such a bird. Nevertheless, I 

 returned, the bird we had heard was a chaffinch, and 

 familiar as he was with such a bird he could not put 

 his knowledge against mine in such a case. He 

 assented but still felt dissatisfied. " You will allow, I 

 suppose," he said, " that there are great differences 

 in individual singers and that some one bird may be 

 so different from the generality as to deceive one who 

 is not an ornithologist as to its species." 



He was right there, I said, and that consoled him, 

 and he concluded that this particular bird had uttered 

 an unusual sort of song which no person, not a 

 trained naturalist, would have identified as that of a 

 chaffinch. 



It was not so, but I let it pass, and he was glad to 

 get back to other higher subjects where he was, so to 

 speak, on his native heath and could be my guide. 



