24 THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 



He contemplates living objects, but cares little for 

 dead ones; he busies himself with -watching the 

 times and the seasons when certain animals make 

 then appearance ; he strives to know their food, 

 instincts, habits ; he is dissatisfied until he is ac- 

 quainted with the note of every bird familiar to his 

 neighbourhood ; he studies the construction of their 

 nests, then periodical arrivals and departures, their 

 loves, then* lives, and their deaths. He watches 

 their several changes of form, of color, or of plu- 

 mage ; he traces how these circumstances are modified 

 and influenced by the seasons- and he makes special 

 notes of these things in his common-place book. 

 If he discovers that his crops or his fruit are injured 

 by insects, he rests not until he traces the aggressor 

 through all its series of depredations- and, being 

 armed with a knowledge of its secret modes of doing 

 injury, he is the best man for applying a successful 

 remedy. As for its scientific name, that gives him 

 no thought ; he cares not whether the name be old 

 or new ; it is sufficient for hiin that it gives to the 

 insect an appellation. He will walk through a mag- 

 nificent museum with no more curiosity* than is felt 

 by an ordinary person; and as for systems, and 

 technical terms, ' he cannot away with them.' He 

 wonders how people can count the joints of an 

 antenna of an insect, measure the quill feathers of a 

 bird, reckon the grinders of a quadruped, or number 

 the rays of a fish's fin. His chief, if not his only 

 interest is in the life of an animal. While others 



