Page:Birdlifeguide00chap.djvu/36

10 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 “&thinsp;their human attributes. Man exhibits hardly a trait which he will not find reflected in the life of a bird. Love, hate&thinsp;; courage, fear&thinsp;; anger, pleasure&thinsp;; vanity, modesty&thinsp;; virtue, vice&thinsp;; constancy, fickleness&thinsp;; gen&shy;erosity, selfishness&thinsp;; wit, curiosity, memory, reason—we may find them all exhibited in the lives of birds. Birds have thus become symbolic of certain human character&shy;istics, 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