A Book on Birds 



intimately is every other realm related to 

 this, and so sensitive and subtle are the 

 ties by which we ourselves have been 

 joined to all created things from the begin- 

 ning. 



A genuine love of nature in its broad- 

 est, deepest, highest development — a love 

 which reaches with wide and eager vision 

 and extended hands toward the stars above, 

 and out unto the uttermost bounds of 

 land and sea, wakening, vivifying, sharpen- 

 ing every sense, and enkindling in the 

 heart a warmth of interest so genial and 

 pervasive as to make one under its influence 

 as a soul aroused to its real self from a 

 vague, dull dream of being — a love of nature 

 like this must inevitably start from some 

 first point of individual contact. And 

 the realm of birds is quite sufficient to 

 meet the requirement. 



Indeed, we may go farther and say 

 that no other realm offers it more attrac- 

 tively than this, with its enchanting allure- 

 ments of music, color, motion, tenderness, 

 and the magic of an ideal, care-free existence. 



[10] 



