Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/104

78 this respect are persons who have been little on the field themselves, or, in other words, who rather belong to the class known as closet than field naturalists; the latter knowing well that it is really almost impossible to conceive of a position which is not sometimes assumed by the living bird. Of this point I have recently been more convinced than ever from the study of two living specimens of Owls—the Snowy Owl and the Short-eared Owl—which have been in my possession for some months. For instance, taking one out of the many positions indulged in by the first of these birds, what would my criticising friends have thought and said had I represented him as a round ball of white feathers, head hardly perceptible, feet entirely concealed, and squatting on the ground like a hen covering her chickens? Yet this is the position in which I always find my Snowy Owl when I unexpectedly enter her abode. "When aroused, however, she draws herself up, her head and feet become visible, and she presents such a figure as one of those given on the two plates allotted to this species in this work. The Short-eared Owl has many remarkable attitudes, and most of these differing from any of those in which the bird is figured in ornithological works. His wings are seldom kept close to his body, but rather in a drooping position, and either resting on the perch on which he sits, or, as the case may be, trailing on the ground; while his head is generally sunk deeply between his shoulders. In fine, the attitude of a bird is anything conceivable. The form of the bird is of far greater importance than its attitude, and in the specimens selected for this work this was carefully perpetuated by means of girths and numerous measurements made from the bird while in the flesh, and generally immediately after death.

"Of still greater importance, however, than either of the foregoing points is the careful selection, already referred to, of proper or typical forms of plumage, of young, old, male and female birds. Compared with this, the attitude is of but trifling consideration, and it would have served the purpose of this work equally well had I simply selected and photographed appropriate unmounted skins. Indeed, had it been necessary in order to show properly some specific detail connected with the feet and claws, I should not have hesitated to have mounted the bird accommodatingly holding forth his foot for the inspection of the enquiring student; so when the exhibition of the under sides of the wing was desirable I have not hesitated to give the bird the necessary position. In fine, the main object of this work is practical utility—not a mere exhibition of pretty photographs."

On this point, the author, in the foregoing paragraph, has almost disarmed criticism, and, after reading what he says, we are inclined to agree with many of his arguments; for the purposes which he has in view, we must certainly say that the photographs, of which there are no less than thirty, give in most