CHAPTER V 



A WINGED CHUM 



*'No one can be lonely who has a friend, no one 

 need lack a friend so long as the woodland is full 

 of birds eager for Man 's understanding. ' ' 



These words, which were the last that the Bio- 

 logical Survey expert spoke when he bade good-by 

 to Shan, rang steadily in the boy's ears. The idea 

 that birds were personalities was new to him. 

 While, perhaps, he had not thought all birds alike, 

 recognizing that the Blue Jay v/as mischievous, 

 the Chickadee trustful and the Kingbird pug- 

 nacious ; yet he had never realized that in a single 

 nest, four or jQve fledgelings might have characters 

 as different as four or five children in a family. 



" 'Individual birds of the same species/ " the of- 

 ficial had said to him, quoting from Bolles, ** 'have, 

 in proportion to the sum total of their character- 

 istics, as much variation as individual men. Of 

 course, there is not nearly the same chance of indi- 

 viduality in birds as in men, for their methods of 

 life and their mental qualities are simple, while 

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