496 HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 



the utility of lying quite still when we have the misfortune to be 

 ,struck to the ground by an animal of the cat tribe. 



I bade a long farewell to Captain Woodhouse and his two friends, 

 Messrs Kavanagh and Pontardent, at Frankfort-on-the-Main. They 

 were on their way to India, through Vienna and Constantinople. 

 May honours, health, and wealth attend them 1 



HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 



MOST men have some favourite pursuit, some well-trained hobby, 

 which they have ridden from the days of their youth. Mine is orni- 

 thology ; and when the vexations of the world have broken in upon 

 me, I mount it, and go away for an hour or two amongst the birds 

 of the valley ; and I seldom fail to return with better feelings than 

 when I first set out. He who has made it his study to become 

 acquainted with the habits of the feathered tribes, will be able to 

 understand their various movements almost as well as though they 

 had actually related their own adventures to him. 



Thus, when I see the windhover hawk hanging in the air on 

 fluttering wing, although it be at broad noonday, I am quite certain 

 that there is a mouse below, just on the point of leaving its hole for 

 a short excursion ; and then I thank him kindly for his many ser- 

 vices to the gardener and the husbandman, and I tell him that he 

 shall always have a friend and a protector in me. Again, when I 

 observe the carrion crow, in the month of May, sailing over the 

 meadows with the sagacity of a spaniel, I know at once that some- 

 where or other she has a nest of hungry little ones to provide for, 

 and that she is on the look-out for eggs, or for young birds, to sup- 

 ply their wants ; and then I tell her I feel sorry from my heart that 

 the pressing duty of providing for a large and ravenous family should 

 expose her to the eternal enmity of man, knowing full well that, a* 

 other seasons of the year, she is a real benefactress to him, by clear- 

 ing his fields of a world of insects which feed upon their produce. 



For reasons unknown to us, the birds are particularly vociferous, 



