306 
ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 
Preserving it to the cabinet of Paris, according to my promise. 
—— 1 — A word or two more, and then we will conclude. 
A little time and experience will enable you to 
produce a finished specimen. “ Mox similis volucri, 
mox vera volucris.” If your early performance 
should not correspond with your expectations, 
do not let that cast you down. You cannot be¬ 
come an adept all at once. The poor hawk itself, 
which you have just been dissecting, waited to be 
hedged before it durst rise on expanded pinion; and 
had parental aid, and frequent practice, ere it could 
soar with safety and ease beyond the sight of man. 
Little more remains to be added, except that what 
has been penned down with regard to birds, may be 
applied, in some measure, to serpents, insects, and 
four-footed animals. 
Should you find these instructions too tedious, 
let the wish to give you every information plead in 
their defence. They might have been shorter : but 
Horace says, by labouring to be brief you become 
obscure. 
If, by their means, you should be enabled to pro¬ 
cure specimens from foreign parts in better preserva¬ 
tion than usual, so that the naturalist may have it 
in his power to give a more perfect description of 
them than has hitherto been the case; should they 
cause any unknown species to be brought into pub¬ 
lic view, and thus add a little more to the page of 
natural history, it will please me much. But should 
they, unfortunately, tend to cause a wanton expense 
of life; should they tempt you to shoot the pretty 
