tto
voce_, sometimes almost inaudible _chuck_; the Swainson's is a mellow
whistle; while that of the Alice is something between the Swainson's and
the Wilson's,--not so gentle and refined as the former, nor so
outrageously vulgar as the latter.

In what is here said about discriminating species it must be understood
that I am not speaking of such identification as will answer a strictly
scientific purpose. For that the bird must be shot. To the maiden

"whose light blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,"

this decree will no doubt sound cruel. Men who pass laws of that sort
may call themselves ornithologists, if they will; for her part she calls
them butchers. We might turn on our fair accuser, it is true, with some
inquiry about the two or three bird-skins which adorn her bonnet. But
that would be only giving one more proof of our heartlessness; and,
besides, unless a man is downright angry he can scarcely feel that he
has really cleared himself when he has done nothing more than to point
the finger and say, You're another. However, I am not set for the
defence of ornithologists. They are abundantly able to take care of
themselves without the help of any outsider. I only declare that, even
to my unprofessional eye, this rule of theirs seems wise and necessary.
They know, if their critics do not, how easy it is to be deceived; how
many times things have been seen and minutely described, which, as was
afterwards established, could not by any possibility have been visible.
Moreover, regret it as we may, it is clear that in this world nobody can
escape giving and taking more or less pain. We of the sterner sex are
accustomed to think that even our blue-eyed censors are not entirely
innocent in this regard; albeit, for myself, I am bound to believe that
generally they are not to blame for the tortures they inflict upon us.

Granting the righteousness of the scientist's caution, however, we may
still find a less rigorous code sufficient for our own non-scientific,
though I hope not unscientific, purpose. For it is certain that no great
enjoyment of bird study is possible for some of us, if we are never to
be allowed to call our gentle friends by name until in every case we
have gone through the formality of a _post-mortem_ examination.
Practically, and for every-day ends, we may know a robin, or a redstart,
or even a hermit thrush, when we see him, without first turning the bird
into a specimen.