The Audubon Societies 457 



JUNIOR AUDUBON WORK 

 For Teachers and Pupils 



Exercise XVIII: Correlated with Reading, Story-Telling and 



Literature. 



BIRDS IN PROSE AND POETRY 



November and December are here, ushering in the holiday season and New 

 Year, with their sno^^y tokens of the Ice-King and Snow-Queen who rule 

 Nature during the winter. Suddenly the leaves have deserted the trees, the 

 grass has withered and browned, many birds and insects and most of the wood- 

 land folk ha\'e disappeared. The change has come so quietly, so irresistibly, 

 that no one can tell exactly when it happened. Stillness, and austere serenity 

 have settled down upon Mother Earth. 



The outlines of hill and mountain are etched firmly and clearly in relief 

 against the sky, and, as the Snow-Queen drops over all her white covering, 

 they will stand out against the blue canopy above them in a beauty unknown 

 at other seasons. By day or by night the eye is delighted with form and 

 radiance, rather than with verdure and color. 



In the cold, still air, sounds are carried through the leafless forests with 

 startling clearness. Everything in Nature stands out distinct and isolated in 

 the vibrant atmosphere. A change has come over all the world. We, alone 

 among created things, seem to be spectators of this mysterious transition, 

 instead of sharers in it. 



Time was, hundreds of years ago, when primitive man was quite as much 

 a part of nature as the animals and plants around him. To him, as to the child- 

 like savage of modern times, all things had a personality in some measure like 

 his own. Thus it came about, that he imagined much that was not really true, 

 although he believed it at the time, and handed down by word of mouth many 

 strange stories. These stories were mainly about things in Nature which are 

 quite as familiar today as in those far-off ages, if we would only look about and 

 discover them. We may call the stories of primitive man, earth stories and beast 

 stories. When these stories distinctly teach some lesson of good or evil, we call 

 them fables. Most of the oldest beast-fables, however, are merely stories with- 

 out any moral. A myth is an earth story, too, but it is not told to point a 

 moral. Moreover, it is often the combined story-telling eft'ort of several genera- 

 tions, while a fable, like a parable and the briefer proverb, is short, concise, and 

 invariably to the point. 



There are so many of these ancient earth stories and beast fables which 

 have come down to us in one form or another, that we may be surprised to find 

 how old they are, and to how many different races of men they have furnished 

 amusement and instruction. Since the fable without a moral, that is the simple 



