APPENDIX TO MANUAL. 11305) 
contain four or more males to every female—a disproportion that 
should be as far reduced as possible. The occasion of the disparity is 
obvious—females are usually more shy and retiring in disposition, 
and consequently less frequently noticed, while their smaller size, as 
arule, and plainer plumage, further favor their eluding observation. 
The difference in coloring is greatest among those groups where the 
males are most richly clad, and the shyness of the mother birds is 
most marked during the breeding season, just when the males, full of 
song and in theirnuptial attire, become most conspicuous. It is often 
worth while to neglect the gay Benedicts, to trace out and secure the 
plainer but not less interesting females. This pursuit, moreover, often 
leads to discovery of the nests and eggs—an important consideration. 
Although both sexes are generally fuund together when breeding, and 
mixing indiscriminately at other seasons, they often go in separate 
flocks, and often migrate independently of each other—in this case 
the males usually in advance. Towards the end of the passage of 
some warblers, for instance, we may get almost nothing but females, 
all our specimens of a few days before having been males. The not- 
able exceptions to the rule of smaller size of the female are among 
rapacious birds and many waders —though in these last the disparity 
is not so marked. I do not recali an instance, among American birds, 
of the female being more richly colored than the male. When the 
sexes are notably different in adult life, the young of both sexes resem- 
ble the adult female—the young males gradually assuming their dis- 
tinetive characters. When the adults of both sexes are alike, the 
young commonly differ from them. 
In the same connection I wish to urge a point, the importance of 
which is often overlooked; it is our practical interpretation of the 
adage, ‘‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Always keep 
the first specimen you secure of a species till you get another; no 
matter how common the species, how poor the specimen, or how cer- 
tain you may feel of getting other better ones, keep tt. Your most 
reasonable calculations may come to naught, from a variety of cir- 
cumstances, and any specimen is better than no specimen, on general 
principles. And in general do not, if you can help it, discard any 
specimen in the field. No tyro can tell what will prove valuable and 
what not; while even the expert may regret to find that a point comes 
up which aspecimen he injudiciously discarded might have determined. 
Let a collection be ‘‘ weeded out,” if at all, only after deliberate and 
mature examination, when the scientific results it affords have been 
elaborated by a competent ornithologist; and even’ then, the refuse 
(with certain limitations) had better be put where it will do some 
good, than be destroyed utterly. For instance, I myself once valued, 
and used, some Smithsonian ‘‘sweepings”; and I know very well what 
