Recent Literature. 
Minot’s “ Land and Game Birds of New England.” — A stricture, 
in the July Bulletin (Vol. VI, p. 145), on my work convinces me the ipore 
firmly that ornithologically I am a heretic, Being a sincere heretic, and 
being thus impugned, I wish to avow my creed, and to vindicate my 
methods. As to the particular point assailed, I submit that the presenta- 
tion of evidence, probabilities, and judgment, is not a statement of in- 
ference as fact, and, moreover, that no statement ought utterly to be 
condemned before the evidence has been either demanded or examined. 
I most willingly confess that, after five years’ more experience and 
judgment, there is much in my “Birds of New England” that I would 
gladly alter: but my theories of work I have no reason to change. To 
the servant of science the gun is often indispensable, not only for satis- 
fying the judgment of others, but for confirming one’s own observation ; 
but, on the other hand, I believe that ordinarily it far too often takes the 
place of the naturalist’s faculties and senses, and that too often the 
animal love of sport or killing-, and the human love of material acquisition, 
are unconsciously his motives. It is astonishing how many persons are 
dependent for their sight quite as much upon their fingers as their eyes, 
and to how many obtuse and illogical minds (I make no personal reference 
whatsoever) circumstantial evidence is of no value.* In this common 
demand for tangibility, there seems to me a want of perception and 
sentiment, of ideality and liberality. This may sound sentimental and 
sententious; but I know not how better to express a strong feeling upon 
which much of my practical work has been based. If the notes and eggs 
that I can produce, though unaccompanied by a dried skin, are not what 
I claim them to be, I defy any one on earth to tell me what they are. As 
for wilful dishonesty, the gun surely is no protection against that. 
As arguments from analogy are usually misleading, I prefer suggestions 
by comparison. What is evidence? If A testifies to seeing B at a 
certain time and place, is his evidence to be questioned simply because 
he cannot now produce B in court? Is his evidence of no value, that a 
certain builder built a certain house, because he cannot now produce the 
body of that architect for identification ? If A can reproduce exactly B’s 
peculiar voice and intonation, can it reasonably be questioned whether 
he has ever known him ? Is not the question properly : is this witness 
of accurate observation, competent judgment, truthful memory and nonest 
purpose? or, on the other hand, if he is a perjurer, is his evidence to be 
trusted, no matter what its nature? 
* “ I hold that logical deduction from certain known facts may be a positive and 
decisive kind of knowledge; and that the mental processes concerned are strictly sci- 
entific.” .... I “ feel little respect for a frame of mind that prefers to take ‘ten to one ’ 
chances of blundering empirically as against logical results of ratiocination.” (Dr. 
Coues, pp. 79-80, in Stearns’s “New England Bird Life,” Part I.) These remarks seem 
fairly correspondent in spirit, if not in letter, to the feelings expressed above. I may 
here add that the value of Mr. Stearns’s new work renders that of his predecessors of 
much less account. — H. D. M. 
