INTRODUCTION. 19 



one ; and both in the young and the decaying bird, the tints 

 are less perfect and the gloss is inferior. With very few 

 exceptions, the male bird has the finest plumage; but the 

 young male is not easily distinguished from the young 

 female: and in the mature bird the distinguishing colours, 

 and also the peculiar and often supplemental feathers in 

 which those colours appear, are most conspicuous about the 

 pairing time. That is, indeed, the very best time for study- 

 ing birds, as they are then seen and heard to the greatest 

 advantage; while the general activity and freshness of the 

 season have the charm of novelty, heightened by the re- 

 membered contrast of the gloomy winter, which is just over. 

 The popular descriptions of birds are perhaps, however, 

 too much dependent on colour, and too little on the size, 

 shape, and especially on the structure and habits of the 

 birds. 



Size is, in so far, a very good means of distinction ; but, in 

 many instances, it is more vague than even colour. Many of 

 the small birds which frequent the gardens and shrubberies, 

 and are in consequence the most convenient for general 

 observation and study, are so nearly equal in size, that it is 

 not easy to say which is the largest, and which the least, 

 unless when the different ones are seen at the same time and 

 nearly at the same distance. 



Shape, or form, is a good means of distinction, because 

 there is a resemblance in form among all the birds that have 

 the same general habits, even though they differ ever so much 

 in colour and size; and though there are variations in the 

 details (as no two species of birds have exactly the same 

 habits), yet the similarity in form runs through all the parts 

 of the bird. Birds have, however, so much power over their 

 attitudes, and the outlines of their form change so much with 

 the changes of these, and are, taken as a whole, so different in 

 the living and the dead bird, that the characters are much 



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