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 I 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 

 aesthetic 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 Coues. 



