The Golden Oriole 



CHAPTER XV 



In a Green Country in Quest of Rare 



Songsters 



I CAN understand the feeling experienced by some 

 visitors from far-distant sunburnt lands — our Antipodean 

 "dependencies," for example — on first coming to Eng- 

 land, at a time of year when the country is greenest. 

 The unimagined brilliancy of the hue and its universality 

 affect them powerfully; for though green was known to 

 them in sea and sky and earth and in a parrot's plumage 

 it is not really the colour of nature in their world as 

 in ours. It is a surprise to all and in some a pure 

 delight, but to others it appears unnatural, and it is 

 degraded by its association in the mind with fresh green 

 paint. But to those who live in England, especially in 



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