A LABRADOR SPRING 
bird-students —and their name is legion, both 
masculine and feminine — that it is far better to 
be silent or confess ignorance than to affirm 
knowledge unless that knowledge is based on 
sound observation. It is to be regretted that 
too many ardent bird-students are not only 
lacking in powers of observation and in ap- 
preciation of the scientific value of truth, but 
also that they possess imaginations which 
lead them to see what the text-books have given 
them to expect. Above all they should avoid 
embarrassing ornithologists by recording in 
print imperfect and erroneous observations, and 
they should remember that by so doing they 
discredit not only themselves but the whole class 
of gunless observers. 
Turn we now, as dear old Professor Shaler 
used to say, to another subject. Instantaneous 
photography shows that birds extend the 
bastard wing just as they alight. The bastard 
wing consists of a few stiff feathers attached to 
the so-called thumb on the front edge of the 
bird’s wing. Ordinarily it lies flat and is not 
seen, but just as the bird alights from a flight 
it is extended so as to be partially detached 
from the main wing. In the domestic pigeon 
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