SbrfftesBotes 



From Aristotle down to Dr. Coues, science 

 has stroked bird-feathers the wrong way ; 

 while from Pindar along the singing line 

 to Tennyson poetry never has been able 

 to tell the whole avian truth. There was 

 Buffon, half poet, half scientist, and tipped 

 with a ray of philosophy, who first made 

 bird-literature truly delightful. But even 

 he depended largely upon doubtful facts 

 and vague guesses and analogies for the 

 finest marrow of his ornithological essays. 

 He blundered so charmingly about birds 

 that when he was at his worst he fairly 

 glowed with fascination. What a romance 

 he might have made about the shrike, had 

 he once got fairly to strumming the chord ! 

 Somehow he slipped it lightly by. And 

 why, indeed, do I mention Buffon here? 

 Possibly because, when I went to him for 

 shrike-notes, I got so little, and yet so 

 much. As usual, instead of turning away, 

 I kept on reading from sketch to sketch — 

 the cuckoo, the starlings, the hawks — right 

 on and on, and almost forgot my shrike. 

 Here was a master of bird-talk; here were 

 notes worth reading, whether true or false 

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