
CHAPTER IV. 
REGISTRATION AND LABELLING. 
§26. A MERE OUTLINE of a field naturalist’s duties would be 
inexcusably incomplete without mention of these important 
matters ; and, because so much of the business of collecting 
must be left to be acquired in the school of experience, I am 
the more anxious to give explicit directions whenever, as in 
this instance, it is possible to do so. 
$27. RECORD YOUR OBSERVATIONS DAILY. In one sense the 
specimens themselves are your record—prima facie evidence 
of your industry and ability ; and if labelled, as I shall presently 
advise, they tell no small part of the whole story. But this is 
not enough; indeed, I am not sure that an ably conducted or- . 
nithological journal is not the better half of your operations. 
Under your editorship of labelling specimens tell what they 
know about themselves ; but you can tell much more yourself. 
Let us look at a day’s work: —You have shot and skinned so 
many birds and laid them away labelled. You have made ob- 
servations about them before shooting, and have observed a 
number of birds that you did not shoot. You have items of 
haunts and habits, abundance or scarcity ; of manners and ac- 
tions under special circumstances, as of pairing, nesting, lay- 
ing, rearing young; feeding, migrating and what not; various 
notes of birds are still ringing in your ears; and finally, you 
may have noted the absence of species you saw awhile before, 
or had expected to occur in your vicinity. Meteorological and 
topographical items, especially when travelling, are often of 
great assistance in explaining the occurrences and actions of 
birds. Now you know these things, but very likely no one else 
does ; and you know them at the time, but you will not recollect 
a tithe of them in a few weeks or months, to say nothing of — 
years. Don’t trust your memory; it will trip you up; what 
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