8 Birp KILLING IN ORNITHOLOGY. 
bird-life. Even the almost pure quantitative instance thereof 
(the mere unit) is more than a mere unit; being by its presence 
or absence also a modification of the type; a modification which 
may even be from infinity to zero of every character or quality 
in a single residual instance! A permanently definable or 
invariable type can thus have no instances whatever; and genuine 
“instances” are examples each of unique qualitative self-identity 
whose defining relations are consistent with each other or consti- 
tute a series or system. Such examples of uniqueness in a system 
are the objects of ornithological science. ‘They may be taken 
numerically in the province of statistics; or by some more ade- 
quate and important, some more qualitative, standard. But are 
never mere instances of a mere type or sort. 
We have thus on the basis of strict arithmetic cleared the ground 
of the possibility of there actually being any permanently definable 
classes, species, types, or collective bird-sorts for intelligible experi- 
ence, sensuous or rational. I can now add as a matter of common 
sense that if a bird admittedly have any characteristic or quality 
of its own (is something else than the above inconceivable “ mere 
unit’) such a character zz that bird in which alone it is actual, is 
not identically the same as any character whatsoever in any other 
individual bird. One may not care to distinguish it by name, but 
one always does distinguish it in meaning just so far as “it” 
has a meaning. Of course one’s definition or knowledge may 
always grow more discriminating, and in so doing detect that the 
newly obsolete degree of knowledge can in the light of the better 
learning refer only to an impossible’ or abstract character 
obviously applicable zf zo any, then just as well to more than one 
instance. But such is then automatically a rejected definition, 
from which our new discrimination has moved on. The class- 
character is precisely what we do wot assert of any bird; and is 
therefore a repository for worn-out information, or (what is the 
same thing) an abstract schema for pigeon-holing distinct charac- 
ters which we are not interested to define elaborately enough for 
our own present satisfaction. The type is thus a means of 
approach, ready reference, nomenclature, etc., in situations where 
we acknowledge our better information to be for the moment 
incommunicable to others. It is a shorthand statement of the fact 
- 
Ee —————— 
o oe eee 
——a = 
EEO —————E—E———< a 
