SOME COLONY BIRDS. 
By Rev. Cuartes B. Dawson, S8.J., M.A. 
Tn this article and in others that may follow under the same title, I propose 
to give an account, colloquial rather than scientific, of such birds of our colony 
as have fallen, or may fall under my observation while within the bars of a cage. 
It is only when creatures are studied in this way that their full character can 
be determined, though the student must by no means confine himself to this 
method alone. He must also go abroad into the wilds and visit the haunts of 
the birds he would study ; and then, diligently and carefully, bring all his 
powers of observation, and all his scientific knowledge into play, adding trait 
upon trait and line upon line until the full character is portrayed. This is 
what I have attempted to do ; and though I do not flatter myself that I have 
yet acquired a complete knowledge of any one species, I think I may have 
gained sufficient new information to make this article interesting to the readers 
of Timehri, and to stimulate research in similar directions. 
Such scientific research will well repay the student of Nature here in British 
Guiana where so many fields of zoological knowledge lie open to him. Several 
eminent zoologists indeed have worked in the colony for many years ; but there 
is still an immense amount of work to be done before the last species of insect 
or bird has been discovered or the last word of science said. 
In spite of all that has been said or written, ignorance of the ways and habits 
of even the common forms of our bird and animal life is widespread, and wrong 
notions prevalent. How many persons, for instance, as they walk down 
Brickdam or Main Street are able to give the right name to every bird they 
see? While the birds they do not see, but which, secure behind their leafy 
bower, scan them closely with their bright black eyes, number many more. 
And yet an untold delight may be derived from a personal knowledge of our 
feathered friends, as the initiated well understand. ; 
This knowledge must be personal. Zoological facts as stated in scientific 
manuals are very dry until they are verified and confirmed, by one’s own 
observation. A single scientific truth acquired by one’s own industry quickens 
a thousand kindred ones however baldly stated in the pages of a book ; 
and even bare fact becomes absorbingly interesting as soon as it is viewed in 
real life and in its own natural setting. And the mines are inexhaustible! 
A long experience of the ways of beasts and birds leads me to the conclusion, 
with Descartes, that these lower animals, in contradistinctionto man, must only 
be regarded as very highly complicated, living machines : living automata, 
in fact. Not, however, that I agree with those who hold that the ordinary 
agencies which operate upon matter sufficiently account for animal manifesta- 
tions ; or that mere mechanical, physical, and chemical forces make the sum 
total of animal existence ; I maintain with Suarez, §,J,, that in generation and 
