184 Summer Studies of Birds and Books chap. 



mistaking the dark rusty brown of young birds and 

 females for a changed plumage in all Blackbirds.^ 

 The Hoopoe, he seems to think, assumes in early 

 spring the feathers of a white hawk; he is here 

 following a very curious and difficult passage of 

 Aeschylus, which he quotes in fuU.^ Yet in spite of 

 these delusions Aristotle is careful to tell us that the 

 Cuckoo does not change into a hawk in autumn, 

 as so many people then believed, and believe to 

 this day. ^ 



I have said enough to show that Aristotle's 

 knowledge of the general facts of the life of birds, 

 though in some points strangely accurate, was on 

 the whole very imperfect. His book was, in fact, a 

 collection of odd bits of unsifted information, so far 

 as it relates to living birds ; his real interest lay 

 rather in investigating the organs of animals by 

 dissection. It is quite true, as Mr. G. H. Lewes 

 remarked long ago, that there is a want of " out-of- 

 doorness " about his book ; it does not smeU of 

 the fields and streams ; its author was neither a 

 sportsman nor a field-naturalist. And if we now 

 turn to what he has to tell us of particular kinds 

 of birds, we shall not find many traces of careful 

 observation, though we may light upon some few 

 details that are interesting to naturalists even now. 



1 lb. ix. 49. B. 1. The word I translate "russet" is ^avS6s. 

 •^ lb. 9. ' lb. vi. 7. 1. 



