3076 Birds. 



maxim, that when an obscure and unheard-of observer takes it upon 

 him to call in question statements which have long passed current in 

 grave and authoritative books, the circumstance is almost evidence in 

 itself, that such an individual is incompetent to look upon the fair 

 volume of creation with accuracy and discrimination, or with advan- 

 tage either to himself or to others. So greatly, indeed, is this the 

 case, that writers on natural history who sit in their closet, who con- 

 cern themselves principally with the artificial arrangements, w r ith the 

 nomenclature, and with the general technicalities of science, and who 

 in person seldom investigate the habits of those animals, the skins 

 and the anatomical structure of which they examine, it cannot be de- 

 nied, with much learning and with many most important results, are 

 not un frequently inclined to look with distrust upon the representa- 

 tions of those who spend their leisure hours in the fields, on the moor, 

 by the margin of the lake, in the recesses of the wood, or on the sands 

 and the precipices of the coast ; who have patiently and narrowly 

 watched the animated beings by which these different localities are 

 enlivened ; and who derive an unceasing pleasure from ascertaining, 

 with all the minuteness and accuracy of which they are capable, the 

 instincts and the movements of the lower creation. Statements put 

 forward by such individuals as the fruit of their anxious and oft re- 

 peated observation, are almost always received with suspicion, and 

 sometimes even as mere invention, when they happen to be contrary 

 to what has been advanced by the reigning authorities, or when they 

 are such as have never been previously noticed or heard of. In such 

 circumstances, it is considered as at the very least far more probable 

 that observers, who are of no reputation in science, and whose names 

 are probably altogether unknown, should have been mistaken, in spite 

 of all that they may assert as having been seen with their eyes and 

 heard with their ears, than that representations which have stood the 

 test of time; which have been copied from book to book ; and which, 

 for a lengthened series of years, have never once been contradicted, 

 shoulinevertheless turn out to be inconsistent with truth, and to be 

 opposed to actual and existing facts. And yet it may, notwithstand- 

 ing all this, be safely affirmed that there are few things more certain 

 than that every one who has eyes to see, ears to hear, and a reason- 

 able portion of intelligence, and who is resolute in the exercise of his 

 faculties, not, indeed, in the spirit of self-conceit and of arrogance, 

 but of respectful independence and becoming firmness, will be en- 

 abled much sooner than he imagines, and to the surprise perhaps of 



