122 
A SCIENTIFIC APPRECIATION [ch. vi. 
feet, and not resting content with this, open them 
up, examine their internal organs, and record as 
much of our observations as we may judge useful 
to ourselves and others.” 
Later on he points out that while the open-air 
study of birds is very delightful, it is not easy :— 
“ The observer of habits must perform laborious, 
expensive, and sometimes dangerous journeys, and 
after all his exertions, may count himself singu¬ 
larly fortunate if he has succeeded in discovering 
some interesting facts previously unnoticed. 
When we remember MacGillivray’s devotion 
to anatomy—for his diligence in dissection was 
extraordinary—we are almost startled at times 
by the vehemence of his insistence on Open-air 
Natural History :— 
“ Is there a man so dead to Nature that, regard¬ 
less of the leafy woods, the green fields, the gliding 
brooks, the rugged rocks, and the wave-washed 
shores, among which only can one study birds 
to advantage, he gathers around him the spoils of 
every land, arranges them into circles and groups 
which he imagines to be concentric, parallel, or 
diagonal, measures their bills and counts their 
feathers, and having thus performed his task, 
chuckles over it with the consciousness of his being 
a philosopher ? Let him alone; you cannot kindle 
his heart with a spark of ethereal fire; but come 
along, and let us study Nature wherever we find 
her glories displayed. We cannot trace a bird 
without taking note of the plants and knolls and 
crags among which it lives; and if it digresses ever 
in its search for food, so must we digress in 
describing its actions,” 
