102 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



Ah yes, but it is dead, and what I see and hold is 

 but the case, the habit, of the living, intelligent 

 spirit which is no more. This gold-red hair, which 

 sparkles like gold in the sunlight when I hold it up, 

 which was exceedingly beautiful when it glorified 

 the head of one that has vanished — this hair is not 

 now beautiful to me but only ineffably sad. Yet I 

 would not grieve at the thought that the lovely 

 children of the air must cease to live, that their warm, 

 palpitating flesh so beautifully clothed with feathers 

 must be torn and devoured; or that they must 

 perish of hunger and cold when the frost has its iron 

 grip on the earth; or fall by the way or on the wide 

 sea, beaten down by adverse bitter winds and rain 

 and sleet and snow. Indeed, I would grieve at no 

 natural ending of life, however premature or painful 

 or tragical it might appear, nor think of death at 

 all; rather I would rejoice with every breath in all 

 this abounding wonderful earthly life in which I 

 have a share. It only grieves me and darkens my 

 mind to think that man should invent and practise 

 every conceivable form of persecution and cruelty 

 on these loveliest of our fellow-beings, these which 

 give greatest beauty and lustre to the world; and, 

 above all cruelties, that they should deprive them of 

 their liberty, that which sweetens life and without 

 which life is not life. 



