IO BirD KILLING IN ORNITHOLOGY. 
of food-supply and mating in life.! But the skeleton, skin, etc., 
which are the main characters of a bird who has been dead for 
any length of time, are so slow in their physiologic metabolism 
that (with the aid of preservatives) they will not perceptibly alter 
even chemically or mechanically in a man’s lifetime. The interest 
in them is not in their decay but in their historical accuracy as 
chronicle of an inferred obsolete actuality. And of course the 
defence here is that we have metabolism permanently chronicled 
for enriching our experience of the individual bird. But however 
this may be (and this [ shall consider below) the question of the 
relative scientific value of the quick and the corpse is no longer 
debarred. It does make a difference of some sort to the strictest 
science whether or no the object thereof is alive or dead. .In one 
case the subject-matter or metabolic focus is present to experience 
in a form more or less available, but surely original; in the other 
it is inferred ex post facto from marks which may or may not be 
correctly interpretable; the interpretation to the psychologic or 
personal bird being doubly indirect. There being such a differ- 
ence, what are its practical bearings? 
2. In the first place, a ceaseless metabolism needs an infinite 
number of chronicles if the chronicle is to be appropriate or suffi- 
cient. Whereas the metabolic bird in life is the spontaneous 
source of interminable unique truths for science, a science dependt 
ent upon permanent chronicle can attain any portion of this ex- 
perience only by stopping the source of it altogether; and will 
then have for its subject-matter only that literally infinitesimal 
fraction of bird-life represented by the visceral, osseous and 
dermal condition (never for two successive moments, especially in 
' Specifically, the very rapid digestion of birds, especially of insect food, 
(taken in connection with wide individual range in appetite) restricts the in- 
formation obtainable to a minimum and almost provokes mistake esfecia//y as 
to negative testimony. A record, to be worth anything appreciable, must con- 
tain a shockingly vast quantity of stomachs. Whether current records err 
most by generalization from insufficient data (a// seasons, a// hours, ad/ locali- 
ties are needed! ), or in too costly slaughter, would be hard tosay. There are 
many devices by which food (and mating) can be readily and correctly ob- 
served in the life. Note the admirable recent study of the disgorgings of 
certain owls. 
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