The parts most abounding in birds are naturally those which supply food in the greatest abundance. The peat-mosses, the cold and treeless hills have their inhabitants. Still, it is where fruit abounds, and where the insects depending on vegetation are most numerous, that birds must always be expected to gather in largest numbers. Trees and substantial hedgerows are also inviting, so that, all things considered, the southern and south-western parts of the neighbourhood are probably the richest both in number of species and of individuals.
The simple fact of so many as ninety of the prettiest and most interesting of the birds accounted British being denizens of our own district should operate as a strong inducement, especially with young people, to commence earnest study of ornithology. If the gathering and examination of ferns and wild-flowers be a perennial pastime, quite as hearty is the enjoyment that comes of observing the forms of birds, always so elegant, the diversities of their vestures, their odd and entertaining manners and customs, their ingenuity, characters, and tempers, their almost human instincts, and their incessant prefiguration of human character. This last is, in truth, not simply one of the most curious and amusing parts of ornithology, but literally the inexhaustible part. The best and most precious lessons in natural history, whatever may be the department, are those which enable us to trace the harmonies between the lower forms of life and our own, seeing that man is not so much contained in nature, as the continent of it, the summary, compend, and epitome of all that is outside of him, and of all that has gone before. It is not necessary, as some seem to suppose, that we should _shoot_ every unlucky bird we may desire to be acquainted with. The museums are now so amply stocked with good stuffed specimens, that there is no need for further slaughter, unless under peculiar circumstances; all that we may want to know about form and colour is procurable indoors, and the best part of the subject is always that which is followed up with our eyes and ears in the fields. There is no harm in killing birds, any more than in the insecticide of the entomologist, so long as necessary for the genuine purposes of science; but to make a point of bringing down every poor wayfarer that may come within range is wanton cruelty. Instead of glorying in the destruction of a rare bird, or of a brilliant butterfly that an instant before had been waving its painted fans like an animated flower, it should rather be matter of regret that it has now been prevented from any longer brightening the earth and air, and that the beauty of the world has been thus much defaced. If a bird in the hand be worth two in the bush, a bird in the woods, rejoicing in the freedom of nature, is worth twenty in a museum or a glass case.