396 THE STRUCTURE AND LIFE OF BIRDS chap. 



wanted. The older writers put down much that had 

 little foundation, believing a thing simply because it 

 was wonderful on the principle of credo quia im- 

 possibile. And some of these old stories are still 

 repeated and believed, while the real wonders of 

 nature, as startling, if not as grotesque, as anything 

 that can be invented, often remain unnoticed. 

 Examine every " ird, then, with a field-glass or a 

 binocular telescope, and get to know the song that 

 each sings and, on getting home, take a good book 

 on birds and try to identify any you were not certain 

 of. The songs of birds are beautiful in themselves, 

 and it is, no doubt, delightful to listen to them with- 

 out knowing in the least what birds are singing, or, 

 perhaps, even without distinguishing one song from 

 another. But it adds to the pleasure if the song 

 tells you of the bird and the bird of the song. When 

 you first learn to distinguish a Thrush's note from a 

 Blackbird's, and still more when you acquire the rare 

 accomplishment of knowing a Blackcap's song from 

 a Garden Warbler's, the delight in the song may, no 

 doubt, be at times alloyed with a certain baser feeling 

 of pride. But the baser feeling does not exclude the 

 higher, and it is difficult to be fond of a particular 

 song without wishing to know the songster. And 

 you come to like the Thrush's song all the better when 

 you find that he sometimes goes on for a quarter of 

 an hour without ever repeating himself exactly. You 

 become a partisan of particular birds, and, perhaps, hold 

 that the Thrush is a better singer than the Nightingale, 

 or the Blackbird than either. And you learn to take 

 pleasure in such minor things as call or alarm notes. 



