HINTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 
309 
perfectly sound, and show no appearance that the 
worm has ever tried to feed upon them. 
. I have penned down these transient remarks by 
way of preface to others, which I may possibly 
write, at some future time, on decay in living 
trees. 
HTNTS TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. 
Most men have some favourite pursuit — some 
well-trained hobby, which they have ridden from 
the days of their youth. Mine is ornithology ; and 
when the vexations of the world have broken in 
upon me, I mount it, and go away for an hour or 
^wo^ amongst the birds of the valley ; and I seldom 
fail to return with better feelings than when I first 
set out. He who has made it his study to become 
acquainted with the habits of the feathered tribes, 
will be able to understand their various movements 
almost as well as though they had actually related 
their own adventures to him. 
Thus, when I see the windhover hawk, hanging 
in the air on fluttering wing, although it be at broad 
noonday, I am quite certain that there is a mouse 
below, just on the point of leaving its hole for a 
short excursion : and then I thank him kindly, for 
his many services to the gardener and the hus- 
bandman ; and I tell him^ that he shall always have 
a friend and a protector in me. Again, when I ob- 
serve the carrion crow, in the month of May, sailing 
over the meadows with the sagacity of a spaniel ; 
X 3 
