310 OUT OF DOORS. 



birds, nor tucking its head under its feathers, but 

 standing bolt upright, its legs stiff, as if two wooden 

 skewers had been thrust up them, and its whole aspect 

 irresistibly reminding the spectator of a dozing cat. 

 Now here is an example which shows the value of 

 understanding a bird's habits before undertaking to 

 stuff its skin. Few persons knew that the owl slept in 

 this odd position until Mr. Waterton found it out, and 

 having discovered this peculiar trait of character, he 

 has indelibly impressed it upon the preserved specimen. 

 In the museum are more than five hundred speci- 

 mens preserved by one hand, not including a vast 

 number of crabs, lobsters, insects, and various other 

 smaller creatures ; the great zoological value of the 

 collection being that every specimen is represented in 

 some natural and characteristic attitude in which it has 

 been observed by the operator. Thus we have the 

 toucans, sitting with their air of serious gravity, and 

 the pert little toucanets, balancing themselves on the 

 branches in the oddest manner, the bill and tail ap- 

 proaching each other beneath the bough. Numbers of 

 parrots and parakeets are displayed in all the attitudes 

 which those mercurial birds assume, spreading their 

 *autiful wings for flight, climbing up the boughs with 

 r hooked beaks, ruffling their feathers, and scolding 

 li other lustily, and, in fact, wanting nothing but 

 lovement to seem gifted with life. 



There are the lovely humming-birds poised on 

 idy wmg, hovering about the flowers, or seated in 



