Page:Birdlifeguide00chap.djvu/36

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10
ÆSTHETIC RELATIONS OF BIRDS.

birds, tlieir grace of motion and musical powers, we must know them. Then, too, we will be attracted by their high mental development, or what I have elsewhere spoken of as “ their human attributes. Man exhibits hardly a trait which he will not find reflected in the life of a bird. Love, hate ; courage, fear ; anger, pleasure ; vanity, modesty ; virtue, vice ; constancy, fickleness ; gen­erosity, selfishness ; wit, curiosity, memory, reason—we may find them all exhibited in the lives of birds. Birds have thus become symbolic of certain human character­istics, and the more common species are so interwoven in our art and literature that by name at least they are known to all of us.”

The sight of a bird or the sound of its voice is at all times an event of such significance to me, a source of such unfailing pleasure, that when I go afield with those to whom birds are strangers, I am deeply impressed by the comparative barrenness of their world, for they live in ignorance of the great store of enjoyment which might be theirs for the asking.

I count each day memorable that brought me a new friend among the birds. It was an event to be recorded in detail. A creature which, up to that moment, existed


    ture, 1889. The Hawks and Owls of the United States in their Rela­tion to Agriculture, prepared under the Direction of C. Hart Mer­riam, by A. K. Fisher; Bulletin No. 3. ibid., 1893. The Common Crow of the United States, by Walter B. Barrows and E. A. Schwarz; Bulletin No. 6, ibid., 1895. Preliminary Report on the Food of Woodpeckers, by F. E. L. Beal ; Bulletin No. 7, ibid., 1895. (See also other papers on the food of birds in the Annual Report and Year-‌book of the United States Department of Agriculture.) Birds as Protectors of Orchards, by E. H. Forbush ; Bulletin No. 3, Massachu­setts State Board of Agriculture, 1895, pp. 20-33. The Crow in Mas­sachusetts, by E. H. Forbush; Bulletin No. 4, ibid., 1896. How Birds affect the Farm and Garden, by Florence A. Merriam ; re­printed from " Forest and Stream," 1896, 16mo, pp. 31. Price, 5 cents.