NATURE IN ACADIE. 63 



■to rest upon. These latter are laid during the latter 

 part of May in the United States, but perhaps a week 

 later in Nova Scotia. They are three, four, or five in 

 number, creamy or greyish white as to ground tint, 

 blotched and streaked with purplish-brown, cinnamon 

 and greyish, the average size of an egg being 1*48 by 

 1/19 inches. The bird, it is said, almost invariably 

 manifests great indignation when the nest is approached, 

 giving vent to loud cries, and yet always keeping at a 

 sufficiently safe distance from the intruder. 



Wilson gave this species the somewhat curious name 

 it bears, on account of its having the " edges of the 

 inside of the shins, below the knee, projecting like the 

 edge of a knife, hard and sharp." The tarsus is, of 

 course, intended, and the term "knee" refers to the 

 tarsal joint or ankle. It is strange, it may be remarked, 

 that such a careful and painstaking ornithologist as 

 Alexander Wilson should not have been free from the 

 popular ignorance which still discovers the tibia of a 

 bird in its tarsus, and fails to discern the true " knee," 

 although so very apparent to anyone who will take a 

 dead bird in his hand and make a very cursory examina- 

 tion of its external characteristics. 



This lack of acquaintance with anatomy is most 

 lamentable. Few seem to realise to what an extent it 

 can dwarf and confine the mind. There are always to 

 be met many good and capable observers of a grade far 

 removed from the vulgar, yet whose mental vision and 

 reasoning powers are all awry through the want of just 

 a slight study of comparative anatomy. No man or 

 woman can indeed look upon the productions of Nature 

 with any degree of rational understanding unless he or 

 she possesses this slight acquaintance with comparative 

 anatomy, which alone permits the observer to see things 

 intellectually, instead of seeing them with a mere animal 

 vision. 



