Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/191

Rh became an ardent bird protector in his poetical days, and a keen botanist; he was a character, but a good sort.

The working-man naturalist has, perhaps, evolved rather than vanished; he has, to a great extent, ceased to collect for mere collecting's sake. There are to-day many small local natural history societies in the Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire manufacturing towns, and some, though not so many as formerly, hold their meetings and have their "museums" in public-houses. I have drunk bad beer and eaten potatoes roasted in their "jackets" in order to attend these meetings, and, frankly, have enjoyed myself, though the dialect, to a southerner, would have been a foreign language. Many societies have a much better tone and more scientific ideals; they are led by men who love nature for nature's sake, and care about their collections as means of increasing knowledge. The pity is that the records of the older clubs were badly kept or not kept at all; they seldom had a recorder; each member was jealous of the others, and kept his knowledge to himself.

When we were parting from one old collector, he asked:

"Do you collect birds?" "No." "Do you stuff them?" "No."

We explained that we wanted to get records, to write about them. He looked at us with pity. "Come any Sunday; you'll meet lots of practical men here."

Writers about birds and recorders are evidently not practical. Perhaps they are not!