Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-08-01

IN
 oRNTTHoLoGY.
 placed on a war footing equal to that of the other army. So that the goose may we'll point with pride to his long unbroken lineage and cheerfully place it alongside that of the Amsterdam and Tinkersdam dudes of New York.
 Aristotle was the first author to write upon ornithology. 3S5 years before Christ. He says in his preface that he had predecessors, but admits with sos- row that they were men who did not know enough to ache when they got hurt.
 Aristotle referred casually to only l70 varieties of birds and threw very little light even on those. He found out that they mostly laid eggs and by the warmth of the body matched these out, there by reproducing their species and keep ing the market supplied. Aristotle did his work so poorly that after the lapse of more than 2. 900 years over 20 of the ITO birds cannot be recognized by his description.
 Aristotle was not a great success as a writer anyway, and, though his work on ornithology was announced as for sale only by subscription and hope to die if anybody else ever sold one, yet inside of | 30 days it could be had at 10 cents on the counter of the leading dry goods | men all over town. so we see that he was not exactly on the level. Pliny followed about the beginning | of the Christian era and issued q work i on ornithology which was very popular | during Pilates term on the bench Pliny's full name was Caius Plinius | Secundus. He was commonly called Pliny the Elder, having been, pre-. sume. O presiding elder of that circuit. Pliny was n bright and clever man, but a poor speller. He says he has divided tho bird family into those which have "hooked tallons as hawkes., or round long claws as henncs, or else they bC broad. fiatte and whole footed as geese and all the sort in manner of water foule" A man who will spell hens that way should have been reproached till he couldn't sit down for Q week Other authors followed Elder Pliny for 10 centuries, but their names have been barely rescued from oblivion, and not until the time of Linna,us, in i735. did any one begin to shed bird knowledge of some value abroad over n bcnighted land. He claimed that verbosity was the bane of science. as it undoubtedly was and still is. He therefore made his work so terse that it often required q clairvoyant to go into a trance and find out what he meant.
 LinnRus was called the reformer be cause he made important changes in tn, classification of birds. dividing then first, if I am rot mistaken. into two great classes-yiZ:
 First-Those which swallow tho cud.
 Second-Those which do not.
 In l770 Buffon got out an excellent book on urnitholoey. with over ,00t beautiful colored plates. Buffon had hi critics, and modern writer says Strictly orthodox though he prOfesseC to be, there were those both among hi own countrymen and foreigners wh' could not read his speculative indict ments of the workings of nature with out Q shudder, and 1t Is easy for any on' in these days to frame a reply pointed with ridicule to such a chapter as h' wrote on the wretched fate of the wood becker"
 Looking over the history of science and ornithology especially, it would seen that am about tho only scientist wh' has not written on this subject I shall divide birds into two grea classes-viz:
 First-Those which sit up late a night
 Second-Those which do not
 Each of these classes. of course ma. be aeuin divided and subdivided int waders, scratchers. squawkers, etc
 The ornithology of North Carolinl ranges all the way from the giganti' but untidy buzzard to the piquant bu hot headed hornet.
 Professor Huxley claimed in sub stance that the bird family so closely TO sembled tho reptile family in all essen tial features of organization that the. , might be said to be merely m extremel. modified and aberrant reptilian type This is true when we begin to lool into the osseous structure especially and with a little batter on it a frog hind leg somewhat resembles quail S Take the toad too He has no doubt fo centuries been content to grovel upol the ground until his efforts to soar ar greeted now with biting sarcasm am coarse laughter. Yet who shall say tha the goose pimples on the back of tn toad did not at one time contain tn glorious plumage of a sweet voiced bird
 We should learn from this not to too easily content A certain degree C discontent is necessary to ambition, an ambition is necessary to progress an promotion. Who knows but that tn common warty toad once fiitted throug the foliage of the forest or chased tn butterfly across the wild sweeps of hon eysuckle and rose? Who knows but ths at first he ate too much and loafed abou in tho shade for few days and finall that he preferred complete rest all th time. until feather by feather his ward