SUGGESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FIELD-WORK. 
9 
flying bird — the calculation to be made varies, according to the distance of the object, 
its velocity, its course and the wind, from a few inches to several feet ; practice will finally 
render it intuitive. 
§ 2. — DOGS. 
A Good Dog is one of the most faithful, respectful, affectionate and sensible of brutes ; 
deference to such rare qualities demands a chapter, however brief. A trained dog is the indis- 
pensable servant of the sportsman in his pursuit of most kinds of game ; but I trust I am guilty 
of no discourtesy to the noble animal, when I say that he is a luxury rather than a necessity to 
the collector — a pleasant companion, who knows almost everything except how to talk, who 
converses with his eyes and ears and tail, shares comforts and discomforts with equal alacrity, 
and occasionally makes himself useful. So far as a collector's work tallies with that of a 
sportsman, the dog is equally useful to both ; but finding and telling of game aside, your dog's 
services are restricted to companionship and retrieving. He may, indeed, flush many sorts of 
birds for you; but he does it, if at all, at random, while capering about ; for the brute intellect 
is limited after all, and cannot comprehend a naturalist. The best trained setter or pointer 
that ever marked a quail could not be made to understand what you are about, and it would 
ruin him for sporting purposes if he did. Take a well-bred dog out with you, and the chances 
are he will soon trot home in disgust at your performances with jack-sparrows and tomtits. It 
implies such a lowering and perversion of a good dog's instincts to make him really a useful 
servant of yours, that I am half inclined to say nothing about retrieving, and tell you to make 
a companion of your dog, or let him alone. I was followed for several years by the best dog 
I ever saw" (every one's gun, dog, and child is the best ever seen), and a first-rate retriever; 
yet I always preferred, when practicable, to pick up my own birds, rather than let a delicate 
plumage into a dog's mouth, and scolded away the poor brute so often, that she very properly 
returned the compliment, in the end, by retrieving just when she felt like it. However, we 
remained the best of friends. Any good setter, pointer, or spaniel, and some kinds of curs, 
may be trained to retrieve. The great point is to teach them not to mouth" a bird ; it may 
be accomplished by sticking pins in the ball with which their early lessons are taught. Such 
dogs are particularly useful in bringing birds out of the water, and in searching for them when 
lost. One point in training should never be neglected: teach a dog what ''to heel " means, 
and make him obey this command. A riotous brute is simply unendurable under any 
circumstances. 
§3. -VAKI0US SUGGESTIONS AND DIRECTIONS FOR FIELD-WORK. 
To be a Good Collector, and nothing more, is a small afikir ; great skill may be ac- 
quired in the art, without a single quality commanding respect. One of the most vulgar^ 
brutal, and ignorant men I ever knew was a sharp collector and an excellent taxidermist. 
Collecting stands much in the same relation to ornithology that the useful and indispensable 
oflfice of an apothecary bears to the duties of a physician. A field-naturalist is always more or 
less of a collector ; the latter is sometimes found to know almost nothing of natural history 
worth knowing. The true ornithologist goes out to study birds alive and destroys some of 
them simply because that is the only way of learning their structure and technical characters. 
There is much more about a bird than can be discovered in its dead body, — how much more, 
then, than can be found out from its stuifed skin ! In my humble opinion the man who only 
gathers birds, as a miser money, to swell his cabinet, and that other man who gloats, as miser- 
like, over the same hoard, both work on a plane far beneath where the enlightened naturalist 
stands. One looks at Nature, and never knows that she is beautiful ; the other knows she is 
beautiful, as even a corpse may be ; the naturalist catches her sentient expression, and knows 
