Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 2 (1898).djvu/403

Rh history who is not a naturalist, so we have in our authoress a lover of birds who is clearly not a scientific ornithologist. With this we have no complaint to make, for under the present circumstances we rather welcome the innovation, as the book makes no pretence to be anything but "an introductory acquaintance with one hundred and fifty birds commonly found in the gardens, meadows, and woods about our homes"; and systems are but a set of propositions to yet secure finality, while all should know their birds and their habits. We like the book for its purely American independence. Emerson has exclaimed for his countrymen—"We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak our own minds." And certainly our authoress has proved her emancipation on this point, for we find a perfectly new treatment of the subject. Thus after a rough sketch of "Bird Families" we have "Habitats of Birds," in which species are grouped according to the positions they frequent, such as in the upper or lower parts of trees, among foliage and twigs or on conspicuous perches, birds of the woods or their edges, birds found near water, birds that sing on the wing, &c. Then the birds are enumerated according to their seasonal appearance; again, according to size; and lastly,—and this is the method of the book,—"grouped according to colour." It is thus abundantly clear that we are alone with the birds, and for the nonce we may well discard all our classifications if we are with any pleasure to read these pages. The treatment is, therefore, an individual one; each bird is as unconnected and free from all systematic restraints as though a scientific ornithology had never spread its net of avian order. We pass from the Titmouse to the Jay; from the Nightjar to the Cuckoo. Colour is here the main plank of an alliance.

If our English Jay is evil in the sight of the gamekeeper, the Canada Jay (Perisoreus canadensis) is answerable for a long list of offences. We read that, according to Mr. Hardy, there is scarcely anything " which can be eaten that they will not take; and I had one steal all my candles, pulling them out endwise, one by one, from a piece of birch bark in which they were rolled; and another peck a large hole in a keg of castile soap. A duck, which I had picked and laid down for a few minutes, had the entire breast eaten out by one or more of these birds. I have