102 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



with glazed eyes in my hand ; but the dead bird, however 

 brilliant in its colours it may be, I cannot admire. It 

 is beautiful nevertheless, it may be said, because of the 

 colour and the form. 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 de- 

 voured; 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 pre- 

 mature 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 practice every con- 

 ceivable form of persecution and cruelty on these love- 

 liest 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. 



