Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 3 (1899).djvu/300

274 specimens, there has been, and still is, a tendency amongst the more conservative even of trustworthy cabinet naturalists to look with pity upon records of the lives of animals as observed in captivity. Every scientific man should bear in mind that the records of new facts in the life-history of an animal, whether observed in captivity or freedom, are a positive gain to science, and of more importance (when not easily discoverable) than the description of a skin, inasmuch as anyone with average ability can describe that upon which he can always lay his hand; but many difficulties may obtrude themselves when an observation has to be made from living subjects.

Aviculture, or the study of birds in captivity, ought to be as scientific as the study of dead birds, and when pursued in a proper spirit it undoubtedly is so. The true aviculturist always has his faculties awake; he must never overlook any detail in the nidification of a species, any change in its plumage, or the colouring of its soft parts; he must observe when and how the change takes place—whether by moult, gradual growth of colour in the feathers, or abrasion of the brittle fringes of overlapping feathers revealing the underlying colour; every courting posture and note must be carefully recorded, and the meaning of the notes studied. Although but little use has been made, by scientific workers, of the valuable facts got together in Dr. Russ's 'Handbuch fur Vogelliebhaber,' there is not the least doubt that they are of considerable importance. A bird can never be said to have been perfectly described until the true colouring of the soft parts is included in the description. Very many species have been fully described by Russ, the colouring of the soft parts being carefully noted in nearly every instance; yet how seldom do we see any use made of these records by cabinet workers! Surely this is a mistake.

It has been asserted that birds cannot be properly studied, even in large aviaries, because they are under unnatural conditions. This is not only untrue, but in many instances it is practically impossible to study their habits under any other conditions. Probably the only reason why the nidification of many of the commonest small birds has never been noted by collectors is because they have only come across them on the edges of morasses, or the outskirts of dense jungle and thicket, into which the birds could penetrate with ease, but the observer could not follow. When impenetrable scrub is represented by half a dozen bushes, the conditions (if not the same as when the bird is wild) can hardly be called unnatural, and observation of the nesting habits becomes easy. The fact that unnatural birds (i.e. what are known as fanciers' birds), when turned out into a large aviary, frequently construct the typical nests of their remote ancestors, is an argument (I think) against the assumption that aviary life is unnatural, and therefore untrustworthy. The young plumages of many