54 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



Flight makes a powerful appeal. , When I ask, "What has a 

 bird that we have not?" fifty hands are raised with the reply, 

 "wings." I show as many birds in characteristic flight as time' 

 permits, presenting this feature as a means of identification to 

 the older boys and girls. 



"I wish I could fly" — is one of the most commonly expressed 

 desires of children. They follow with eyes of longing the spring 

 of the birds into the air, its soar and sail among the clouds. The 

 mystery of its disappearance and reappearance corresponds with 

 the fresh and thronging impressions of the objective world upon 

 the wondering mind. It is the credulity which accepts magic 

 lamps, and carpets, and fairies in flowers. Only by magic, 

 surely, could so tiny a thing as a gold finch emit so loud a song ! 



Perhaps the most impressive of all my pictures and tales are 

 those of the friendship of man and birds, of furnishing nesting 

 material, of summer bathing devices and winter feeding. 



Now, while examination admits that imitation of and sug- 

 gestion from older persons probably plays a part in arousing in - 

 terest in birds among children, beyond doutt the memory-images, 

 rooted in the subconscious mind of childhood, and more vividly 

 than in later life, constitute the real source. Psychologists 

 hold that the subconscious elements form nine-tenths of our 

 whole mind, and that our conscious mind is continually digging 

 up out of that exhaustless mine strange survivals and reminiscences. 

 There, too, we cache the recoils of our individual childish inter- 

 ests, griefs, worries and fears, to which the new psychology, 

 and the new therapeutics, trace, as co "secret springs," so many 

 adult diseases and detriments, physical, mental and moral. 



What ravages time makes upon our faces! How painfully 

 one is struck by the results of the narrowing and hardening of 

 sophistication upon the faces of childhood— companions on 

 meeting them in later life. How few are sweetened and mellowed 

 by living. Yet, I think this evil may be lessened, if not aveited, 

 by maintaining a sympathy with nature. 



It was probably such an experience that led Godwin to write : 

 "The earth is the great Bridewell of the universe, where spirits 

 descended from Heaven are committed to drudgery and hard 

 labor." 



