?02 Correspondence. [J"ly 



wonderful strides since 'The Birds of America' appeared, and it may be 

 argued, when the data are so full, and so many facts, then unknown, now 

 requii-e mention, that space forbids attention to the spiritual side of the 

 charming study. If so, I shall claim that the admission proves my 

 previous point, and that in spite of ovu- advanced knowledge, our trino- 

 mials, our excessive subdivision, our flutterings from one name to its older 

 synonym, and all the other abominations which the learning of our 

 writers has forced upon them, they illustrate a decline in their art, and 

 must bestir themselves to shake off the dust of museums and to draw 

 fresh inspiration from a humbler devotion to nature, for herself. 



Verj' respectfully. 

 The Acorns^ Peace Dale, R. /. , R. G. Hazard, 2d. 



May 27, 1884. 



[Our correspondent, we fear, fails to distinguish clearly between the 

 science of ornithology and the sentiment of ornithology — both legitimate 

 in their way, and not necessarily antagonistic, though not always com-' 

 patible. The love of the beautiful for its own sake is praiseworthy, and 

 to lose sight of the spiritual in nature is to miss some of the highest 

 pleasures of which our lives are susceptible. The graceful forms of birds, 

 their exquisite tints, the melody of their songs, the beautiful economy of 

 their lives, appeal to our senses with a power not easy to resist, much less 

 to ignore. Every true naturalist shares their enjoyment, as well as the 

 school-boy, the poet, and the field-naturalist, whose real knowledge of the 

 structure of birds, their relations to each other, to their environment, and 

 to nature in the broader sense, rarely passes beyond the stage of admira- 

 tion and enjoyment, which will ever vary in intensity with the tempera- 

 ment of the individual. The 'closet' or 'museum' naturalist begins his 

 studies as an enthusiastic lover of nature — is inspired by this love to seek 

 out her mysteries — but whose devotion to the minutiae of the problems 

 presented blunts, perchance, his appreciation of the poetic and the sen- 

 timental. His pleasure in the objects of his study is not less than before, 

 but is different in kind. His enthusiasm has found a new channel; his 

 pleasure is that of discovery superimposed upon admiration and sentiment. 

 The dry details of anatomical structure — external and internal — are preg- 

 nant with meaning, which the non-investigating 'lay' mind fails to see, 

 or, if seeing, to interpret and appreciate. Such fundamental questions as 

 the origin of life, the differentiation of its forms, the evolution of species, 

 and their inter-relationships, interest him less than the peculiarities of 

 habits or song a given species may pi-esent. 



To do any piece of work we must have tools, and must also know how 

 to use them. To mention objects, or their parts, we must have names for 

 them, and in most cases the names have to be provided. The usual lay 

 vocabulary is insufficient, and names must be invented, both for the ob- 

 jects and, to a large extent, for the parts, even if the object be merely a 

 bird. The lay mind takes no note of the minuter structures and, there- 

 fore, has for them no designations. Yet they are the elements the scien- 

 tific mind has most largely to deal with, and which afford the key to many 



