Page:Bird Haunts and Nature Memories - Thomas Coward (Warne, 1922).pdf/197

Rh The taxidermist, too, is accused, often with reason, of presenting an effigy devoid of character. But there are pictures and pictures, photographs and photographs, stuffed birds and stuffed birds; it is not the drawing, the negative, or the set-up skin which shows the bird, but the ability of the artist, whether draughtsman, photographer, or taxidermist, to catch the jizz. I have in mind some slight pencil sketches by Mr. Archibald Thorburn, one of a tawny owl, one of a pintail; there is little detail, but a world of jizz. In my room is a print from a photograph taken by Mr. O. J. Wilkinson; it shows a bird perched on a stump, nothing more; yet in every curve and detail we see at once a living spotted flycatcher. In the "Sportsman's British Bird Book" are a number of illustrations photographed from specimens mounted in Rowland Ward's studios; I have not seen the originals, but whoever mounted some of these birds was an artist; he knew how to record jizz.

Jizz, of course, is not confined to birds. How do we recognise the bank vole, seen for a second in the lane, the long lean rat which appears and vanishes like a grey streak, the pipistrelle flitting in the dusk round the barn? How do we know the daisy in the field, the sturdy oak? Is it by colour, size, length of tail, or shape of wing, by petal, form of leaf, or fruit? No; the small mammal and the plant alike have jizz. We do not stop to look for detail, to ask ourselves what we saw; We know. Jizz may deceive us; that is our fault, for each and every thing has its distinctive jizz; if inexperienced we may fail to discern it.

To learn the jizz should be the object of every field naturalist; it can only be learnt by study of wild creatures in their natural surroundings. The seagull in the aviary, the lark in the cage, the rabbit in the hutch have lost more than half their jizz; the specimen in ninety-nine out of a