BENEATH TROPIC SEAS 



insipid — the ornithological one-half of one per cent. 



Then comes the great majority of mankind — 

 let us say ninety-four and a half per cent — for 

 whom birds occupy an optical fourth dimension, 

 or who can visualize them only between gunsights. 

 A very charming and cultured young lady, in 

 answer to a question about birds, writes from 

 Canada, "There are small black birds here which 

 must be crows, and others are gulls, or at least they 

 keep near the water." Toward all these we must 

 feel only pity, for there is worthy ornithological 

 material hidden beneath the crass ignorance of 

 some, and many a man who boasts of his right 

 and left at pheasants is also thrilled by the song 

 of a nightingale or veery. Who am I indeed to 

 cast the first stone when I have shot a dove on its 

 eggs in the name of science, and shall probably do 

 so again. But in a separate class is the man 

 whose idea of sport is shooting at live pigeons 

 sprung from traps. I would anticipate any post- 

 mortem orientation on his part with a forceful wire- 

 less prayer: Send the soul of this man hack to earth 

 in the bodies of all the old horses of future bull fights. 



Now that we have disposed of the useless and 

 unhappy nineteen-twentieths of our fellow mortals, 

 we have only to consider that remaining five per 

 cent of us whose lives on earth are brightened 

 by a conscious awareness of bird life, whether it be 

 casual interest or consuming enthusiasm. A few 

 of us are congenital fundamentalists in that, from 

 birth, birds seem to dominate our interests. I can 



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