PLAN OF STUDY. 
XV 
cloudy weather, when the temperature of tlie air is not sufficiently 
high, — a fact which has given origin to the error, that the ostrich 
{Struthio camelus) lays her eggs in the sand and abandons them 
to chance. 
Such is a brief example of the mode of study which I am dis- 
posed, from experience, to recommend to those who have begun, 
or are inclined to begin, the study of birds or any other branch 
of Natural History. Books are useful and necessary, beyond all 
question, but no progress can ever be made by trusting to 
book study. Nothing can more strikingly illustrate the difference 
between the closet fancies of mere book naturalists, and the actual 
facts which any body, who will be at the trouble of observing, 
may verify, than the following passage from the highly lauded 
article, Ornithology,” in Rees’s Cyclopaedia. Birds of the 
same species,” says the author, collect the same materials, ar- 
range them in the same manner, and make choice of similar 
situations for fixing the places of their temporary abodes. Wher- 
ever they dispose themselves, they always take care to be accom- 
modated with a shelter ; and if a natural one does not offer itself, 
they very ingeniously make a covering of a double row of leaves, 
down the slope of which the rain trickles, without entering into 
the little opening of the nest that lies concealed below.” 
Now I would remark that the author, in asserting that “ birds” 
(meaning birds in general) “ take care to be accommodated with 
a shelter,” entirely forgets the numerous families which lay their 
eggs on the bare ground, and often even leave them exposed the 
greater part of the day on the sands of the desert, the sea beach, 
or isolated rocks ; but we further learn that ‘‘they” (meaning all 
birds) “ make a covering of a double row of leaves ;” yet, so far 
from all birds doing this, I am not acquainted with an individual 
species that does so. It is impossible that the author could ever 
have seen any nest in the woods and fields, which would give the 
least colour to such fancies. The objects themselves, therefore, 
must be examined, the actions of living animals observed, and the 
causes of these actions traced ; otherwise the details learned from 
books will only lumber the memory, like words conned from the 
vocabulary of a foreign language, the grammar and literature of 
which are unknown. One fact learned from personal observation, 
is to the student worth a thousand mere book facts; and one 
research like that just exemplified, based upon personal observa- 
