' i'J';^"'«.'vi;,: — '- ;-!iy; ■v.w^ -y^-:-^-".--’-'^ 
( 2 ) 
walk carelessly up to a bird and shoot flying, as there is no skill 
except in shooting, and, v/ithout a dog, I find I loose nearly half 
T actually kill. I have found several by accident and a place 
"hiere a fox got one I knov/ I killed. I have v/ritten all this 
,iust to s?iiow shov/ hov/ they have changed. Hut the ciuestion is 
vrhj they all change their habffits at the san'ie time? This week I 
started ten in a place I have not gunned before this year, but they 
v/ere all out of the woods; while a three miles' walk in the best 
of places both for shelter and food revealed no tenants. Those 1 
started v/ere feeding entirely on tame sorrel which springs up 
where sheep go. We all knov; that birds of a kind come c.own from 
the north by common instinct as they say, but hov; do birds go (?) 
miles in a few days and change their habits? 1 1. is not for any 
nev; food or from lack of' such as they have been eat, ing all this 
fall. It is really provoking after one has studied a bird a life 
time to find out that there are lots of things about them which 
he cannot even make a decent guess at. Iietter of Manly 
ifardy, Nov. 20, 1889. 
