FRANK B. COOMBS. 155 
Birds, from their free flight in the pathless air, and their 
mysterious coming and vanishing, have always appealed to 
the reverent side of the human mind, and have symbolized 
beauty, love and the peaceful virtues, enjoying a full share 
of mention in prose and poem, In ancient travelers’ tales 
are the beginnings of natural history. But amidst much 
that was truly seen and told was many a fanciful supersti- 
tion—stories of the Phoenix, dying consumed by celestial 
fire, its single progeny rising from the parent ashes; of the 
Geese that grew from barnacles, and of the Swallow, said 
to bury itself in the mud at the approach of winter, coming 
forth unharmed into the spring sunshine. As men traveled 
more and the means of comparing observations upon our 
running, swimming and flying world-mates grew readier, these 
fables perished one after another, and there came a wish to 
know the truth about them. The addition of facts led in 
time to their separation into special classes of facts, these 
sets being slowly subdivided into the many mutually de- 
pendent specialized departments of our own day. So Orni- 
thology, the study of birds in general, may be approached 
from many points. The scientific classifier busies himself 
in making clear the affinities of groups of birds which have 
essential characters in common, with other such groups 
whose distinctive characters are different, and for this pur- 
pose he asks the aid of those who have had opportunity to 
study the ways and habits of birds of many regions. He is 
helped furthermore by the comparative anatomist, who 
knows their hidden similarities of structure ; and calls upon 
the paleontologist for the testimony of fossil types, long 
extinct, which fill gaps which would otherwise lie between 
now very widely varying groups. 
The economist, too, is occupied in studying the value of 
bird-life to mankind, either as food or in its benefits to agri- 
culture, determining as far as possible in what manner the 
usefulness of birds to man may be increased, their harm con- 
trolled when it occurs, and valuable species protected and 
