A man who studies birds is called an ornithologist. Mark Twain, the amusing, yet kind-hearted, American writer, says: "There are fellows who write books about birds and love them so much that they'll go hungry and tired to find a new kind of bird—and kill it.
"They are called 'ornithologers.'
"I could have been an 'ornithologer' myself, because I always loved birds and creatures. And I started out to learn how to be one. I see a bird sitting on a dead limb of a high tree, singing away with his head tilted back and his mouth open—and before I thought I fired my gun at him; his song stopped all suddenly, and he fell from the branch, limp like a rag, and I ran and picked him up—and he was dead: his body was warm in my hand, and his head rolled about this way and that, like as if his neck was broke, and there was a white skin over his eyes, and one drop of red blood sparkled on the side of his head—and—laws! I couldn't see nothing for the tears. I haven't ever murdered no creature since then that warn't doing me no harm—and I ain' agoing to neither."
A good scout is generally a good "ornithologer" as Mark Twain calls him. That is to say he likes stalking birds and watching all that they do. He discovers by watching them where and how they build their nests.
He does not, like the ordinary boy, want to go and rob them of their eggs, but he likes to watch how they hatch out their young and teach them to feed themselves and to fly. He gets to know every species of bird by its call and by its way of flying; and he knows which birds remain all the year round and which only come at certain seasons; and what kind of food they like best, and how they change their plumage; what sort of nests they build, where they build them, and what the eggs are like.
There are 177 different kinds of birds in Great Britain. Here are some of the commoner birds which a scout should know by sight and sound:
Wood pigeon Heron Jackdaw
Pheasant Wren Rook
Partridge Wagtail Crow
Grouse Swallow Raven