Our Common Birds and How to Know Them 



to him, it must be stated that it is not of the scarcity of objects that he complains, but 

 of the publicity of the situation. He says: "Other things being equal, a modest 

 ornithologist would prefer a place where he could stand still and look up without becom- 

 ing himself a gazing-stock." Nevertheless, Mr. Torrey did "stand still and look up," 

 and to good purpose, too. He says : " Within the last seven or eight years I have watched 

 there some thousands of specimens, representing not far from seventy species." That 

 is what it is to have the love of observing and to know how to exercise it. The ordinary 

 citizen of Boston passes through the Common every day of his life noticing only English 

 Sparrows, and perhaps a few Robins. But Mr. Torrey finds " not far from seventy species," 

 among them birds most unlikely to be in such a place, as the Butcherbird, the Sapsucker, 

 the Maryland Yellow-throat, the Cuckoo, the Kingfisher and the Owl, not to mention a 

 Mockingbird, a Cardinal Grosbeak and a Paroquet, which he guesses to be escaped 

 cage-birds. 



Gilbert White's researches were confined to the single parish of Selborne in the 

 county of Hampshire, England; and his diaries and letters to his friends, "Thomas 

 Pennant, Esquire," and "The Honorable Daines Barrington," in which he discusses and 



