THE ORNITHOLOGICAL GUIDE. 119 



extract is from the preface, and is explanatory of 

 his views : — " In this work, as well as in others 

 which have followed its first publication, and which 

 may be said to have been produced by its success, 

 I have endeavoured to do as I would wish to be 

 done by. I do not want to hear the harangue of the 

 exhibitor; I want to see the exhibition itself, and 

 that he shall be quiet, and let me study and under- 

 stand that in my own way. If I meet with any 

 object that arrests my attention, I do not wish to 

 run over the roll of all objects of a similar kind, I 

 want to know something about the next one, and 

 why they should be in juxtaposition. If, for instance, 

 I meet with an Eagle on a mountain cliff, I have no 

 desire to be lectured about all the birds that have 

 clutching talons and crooked beaks. That would 

 take me from the book of nature, — rob me of the 

 spectacle, and give me only the story of the exhibi- 

 tor, which I have no wish either to hear or to 

 remember. I want to know why the Eagle is on 

 that cliff, where there not a thing for her to eat, 

 rather than down in the plain, where prey is abun- 

 dant ; I want also to know what good the mountain 

 itself does, — that great lump of sterility and cold; 

 and when I find that the cliff is the very place from 

 which the Eagle can sally forth with the greatest ease 

 and success, and that the mountain is the parent of all 

 those streams that gladden the valleys and plains, — 

 when I find that the barren mountain is a source of 

 fertility, that the cold snow is a protecting mantle, 



