186 Vol. XXII 
FROM FIELD AND STUDY 
Sunlight and Shadow.—Since we put away the gun and took to the field-glass I 
wonder if many a doubtful bird on our local lists, admitted solely upon field-glass ob- 
servation, could not be traced to the effect of sunlight or shadows, While doing a little 
collecting recently in the winter woods of southeastern Arkansas this was brought home 
io me as never before. 
The man with the field-glass finds the sunshine one of his greatest drawbacks to 
identification. It is a good thing to have light on a subject but a very unsatisfactory 
condition to have a glare of brilliant sunlight on a bird we are endeavoring to identify. 
And should it be necessary for us to look directly toward the sun, we may find the identi- 
fication of the species well nigh impossible. What a gorgeous plumage a little sunshine 
can impart to some dull feathered and commonplace bird! The bird-man afield often 
finds it necessary to work under conditions that are far from ideal. It is not always 
possible to keep one’s back to the sun and it is generally at the least expected and un- 
prepared-for moment that the prize of the day appears. A living bird is an active 
creature and rarely is it so accommodating as to sit still long enough for us to make 
out every detail of its plumage. Possibly ninety-five times out of a hundred our bird 
moves on before we have clearly seen that one sure identification mark. If we are 
fortunate we may be able to follow it and observe it under more favorable conditions, 
but the chances are that we have seen the last of it for that day and we have just seen 
enough to set us guessing. It may be that we caught but a fleeting glimpse of it, or 
we may have had it under observation for a few seconds, but because of some projecting 
twig we have failed to see that much desired field mark. No doubt we can name its 
family and perhaps we are almost certain about its species. We saw enough to be all but 
positive and it takes but a freak of light or shadow to supply that one half hidden spot. 
One trouble is that we are too apt to look for the rare and unusual in the bird we 
meet. We should curb our enthusiasm and imagination and treat every bird we see as 
the common and to-be-expected species for our locality until we have proven it to be 
otherwise, and when the identity lies in some minor detail, the proof should always be 
the bird in the hand. 
In the cause of accurate observation it might be a good thing if every field-glass 
student could use a gun at least a few times in his or her life. A gun makes one scepti- 
cal and thereby careful. When you identify a bird as this or that with the glasses and 
then shoot it and find it to be something different, it brings home to you as nothing 
else can, how very easy it is to be mistaken. I believe that most collectors have had such 
an experience. 
The field-glass observer is often hurt because someone doubts his accuracy in 
identifying some unusual bird, but no one realizes better than the man who has collected, 
what an easy thing it is to misidentify a bird, and when the identification rests on some 
minor point, it is little wonder that he questions it. I believe my own field-glass lists 
would be larger had I never collected. Many is the bird I leave off my list whose iden- 
tity I am all but positive about. 
Down in Arkansas one day I saw a Hooded Warbler; I identified it with the 
field-glass, but my gun transformed it into a Black-throated Green Warbler, and no one 
could have been more surprised than I. The sunlight or the shadows had played me a 
trick.—CHRESWELL J. Hunt, Chicago, June 2, 1920. 
How Fast Can a Roadrunner Run?—The Roadrunner has gained the reputation 
of being swift of foot, but is its reputation based on actual swiftness, or merely on the 
fact that the bird gets from place to place by the conspicuous use of its legs? In his 
article on “Habits and Food of the Roadrunner in California” (Univ. Calif. Publ. Zool., 
vol. 17, 1916, p. 27) H. C. Bryant quotes from Heermann that the Roadrunner “May, ime 
be overtaken when followed on horseback over the vast open plains” and that Heer- 
mann “once saw one captured by a couple of dogs.” If these statements are accepted, as 
they will be by most people, not for what they literally say, but for what they imply in 
regard to the speed of the Roadrunner, they are calculated, I fear, to give one a slightly 
