as 



Primarily, the use of English names. Make up your minds 

 once and for all to eschew the society of such animals as tinkers, 

 mollymokes, wheeps, whaups, and crockers, and give them their 

 full titles. Beware of the longshoreman who calls Aegalitis 

 hiaticola and Eudromius morinellus both Dotterels, the country 

 yokel who calls Fringilla coelebs and Phylloscopus rufus indiffer- 

 ently the Chiff Chaff. 



Secondly, every third person poses as a lover of our feathered 

 friends, and rarely knows a blackbird from a ringouzel, but will 

 assure you with the greatest confidence that Passer domesticus 

 that has made its nest in a tree is Passer montanus, and who re- 

 cords, as I have seen, " flocks of Passer montanus observed going 

 N. by W. 100 feet up ! " 



Thirdly, the best of us may be deceived by the iridiscent play 

 of the sunshine on the plumage of a bird. The glasses (and the 

 more powerful they are the better) are the only safe test. 



If you can procure a thoroughly good set of binocular 

 telescopes by a maker like Dallmeyer they are more truthful than 

 the best prisms. Prisms tend to degrade colour. If you have prisms, 

 Zeiss is superior in my experience as to truth of tone, and I have 

 used probably nearly every make of prism glasses of any note. 

 Tone of colour counts for much amongst the warblers, especially 

 in the genus Phylloscopus. 



It is this constant terror of the careless observer that makes 

 one fear to accept anything but the dead bird as evidence, and 

 which makes our local avi-faunistic lists read like a catalogue of 

 slaughter. One fears to accept anything but the actual bird. 



I have had Gecinus viridus reported to me as Oriolus galbula, 

 Saxicola oenanthe as Lanius excubitor, Phalacrocorax carbo as 

 P. graculus, hence my scepticism. 



Once a person starts telling me of very rare birds seen re- 

 peatedly I begin to grow suspicious. One does not go out and see 

 storks, crowned cranes, downy woodpeckers, White's thrushes, 

 and Icterine warblers within a few yards of one another. Rare 

 birds do occur, and one gets occasionally records leaving no room 

 for doubt, even without killing the birds. I have local records of 

 Upupa epops the Hoopoe that I have perfect faith in, but then the 

 reporting observer was careful to note many things that confirmed 

 his report to me. 



Lastly, join the British Orinthological Union, or, at any rate, 

 if you can observe accurately make migration returns to their 

 Committee. 



