INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS.
untrained eye becomes gradually accustomed to its new vocation before it is over-taxed. The matter of eyesight is of the first importance in the study of the living bird. Is your sight sufficiently good to allow you to exercise it in this way? The birds that you study will not be in the hand, but in the bush.
You may be accustomed to an out—door life, you may comprehend at a glance all the details of a landscape, or be able to detect a particular flower fields away; but in the quest of a bird which is oftentimes on the wing, your eyes will be obliged to distinguish certain details in a moving object backgrounded by a dazzling sky, and at the next moment refocus, to discover a bird, with perhaps very dull plumage, who is eluding you by circling in the black shadows of the pines. Thus you will be either peering into dim recesses or facing the strongest light twenty times to a single chance of seeing a bird in a clear light, with his plumage accentuated by a suitable background. If you squint and cannot face the sun, you must study birds in the museums, or learn to know them by their songs alone; a field-glass will lengthen the sight, but it will not give the ability to endure light.
Many people think that a bird wears the same plumage and sings the same songs all the year round, and expect to identify it by some easy and inflexible rule, which shall apply to all seasons and circumstances, but this is impossible.
When the birds come to us in spring they wear their perfect and typical plumage and are in the best voice, as befits those who are going courting. The male wears the most showy, or at least the most distinctly marked coat, and is generally slightly larger than the female, except in the case of Owls and a few others, where the female is the larger. In many families there is very little variation between the colouring of the male and female, and at a short distance you would probably notice none, except that the female is the paler of the two. But sometimes the difference is so marked that the novice invariably mistakes the
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