"What was it told you that?" asked Hugh.
"An ornithologist," said Jack.
"What's that?" questioned Hugh; "it's a mighty long word, 'pears to me."
"It means a man that studies birds, and knows all about them."
"Well," said Hugh, "I'd hate to be called by such a name as that, even if I did know all about birds."
"Why," said Jack, "that word isn't anything to some of the Latin names these little birds have. I don't know what they are, many of them, at least, but they're all written down in Uncle Will's bird book, up at the house, and some of them are terrors, I can tell you."
"And this man told you there was 750 different kinds of birds in this country, did he?" said Hugh.
"That's what he told me," said Jack.
"Well," said Hugh, "of course this is a big country, and I make no doubt there's lots o' birds that I never saw, but I don't believe that there's fifty different kinds o' birds around this ranch."
"Oh, yes there are. I'll bet there's twice as many as that. Why just try and count 'em up for yourself; think of all the different kinds of ducks and geese that we saw last fall, and the grouse, and the robins and the gray jays. I'll bet you could count more than fifty yourself, if you had time to think about it."