30 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
excitement, if it results in cold-blooded indifference to the 
taking of life and the infliction of pain. The climax of this 
horrible perversion of our better nature is probably reached 
only by some celebrated vivisectionist, to whom all possible 
torture is a tame and humdrum daily routine. But 1 do not 
think that any human knowledge is worth having at such an 
awful cost to a human being. I will not dwell upon such a 
subject ; but I have brought up these considerations to show 
the perilous possibilities of the ornithologist’s career. Some 
others may be less fortunate than I have been, those whose 
natures have something more akin to cruelty than mine has 
proven to possess; and I wish to warn all such of the risk 
they run, if their intellectual study of birds be not duly 
tempered with tender sentiments of mercy and loving kind- 
ness, 
For if these qualities of the heart, which do the highest 
honor to our humanity, and tend to the truest development 
of our natures along the pleasant paths which our inmost con- 
sciousness points out as best for us to follow—if such heart- 
felt emotions are never stirred to lend their tender grace to 
the severities of intellectual achievements, cultivation of the 
eesthetic faculties during the pursuit of ornithology becomes 
impossible. It would be far better to let the birds alone 
than to misuse or abuse them. Beauty is theirs, in a 
thousand ways capable of ministering to man’s exquisite de- 
light ; the utility of such beauty as theirs in unfolding his 
spiritual insight is not less, I dare say is even greater, than 
that more material usefulness upon which I have already 
dwelt; and if this greatest beauty of birds cannot be ap- 
preciated, at least it ought not to be desecrated. The mel- 
lowest pipe is played in vain to the deaf, to the blind the 
brightest play of color, the utmost gracefulness of motion, 
all perfection of form, are alike indifferent ; but every one 
whose senses are alert, whose imagination is vivid, and 
whose intellect is balanced, will find in the world of birds a 
world of use and beauty. ELLIoTT Cougs. 
