BIRDS AT THEIR BEST 17 



more with us — we know them intimately and 

 have perhaps regarded many individuals with 

 affection ; hence the image that rises in the mind 

 is as a rule of some dog we have known. 



The important point to be noted is, that while 

 each and everything we see registers an im- 

 pression in the brain, and may be recalled several 

 minutes, or hours, or even days afterwards, the 

 only permanent impressions are of the sights 

 which we have viewed emotionally. We may 

 remember that we have seen a thousand things in 

 which at some later period an interest has been 

 born in the mind, when it would be greatly to our 

 pleasure and even profit to recover their images, 

 and we strive and ransack our brains to do so, 

 but all in vain : they have been lost for ever 

 because we happened not to be interested in the 

 originals, but viewed them with indifference, or 

 unemotionally. 



With regard to birds, I see them mentally in 

 two ways : each species which I have known and 

 observed in its wild state has its type in the 

 mind — an image which I invariably see when I 

 think of the species ; and, in addition, one or two 

 or several, in some cases as many as fifty, images 



