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Dr. Walter E. Collinge,



jealously every object that tends to the uplifting and advancement

of its people, irrespective of whether such objects possess any direct

utilitarian value or not.


In the case of wild birds we have both an aesthetic and a

utilitarian value attached to them. On the former we do not

propose to dwell at any great length, for the love of wild birds

is interwoven with our national life. In painting, statuary, poetry

and prose this is at once evident. We have associated with bird

life purity, valour, fidelity, the love of freedom, and the exalting love

of maternity. We have used the bird as the emblem of peace and

contentment, and to express the idea of grace and symmetry of form

and of perfect adaptation to the environment. The song of birds—

the “thousand blended notes” as Wordsworth described it—has

inspired the poets of all ages and countries, those of our own country

being not the least. Some of the stateliest lines in English poetry

refer to birds, as readers of Shakespeare, Shelley, Scott, Burns, Gray,

Longfellow and Tennyson will recall. The study of bird-life has ever

exercised an ennobling influence, in consequence of which in certain

countries efforts have been made to make it a compulsory provision

of the education code to arrange for the study of birds in the public

schools, and in a modified form to the original proposition one of the

States of North America has enacted a law requiring every teacher

in the public schools “ to give oral instruction, at least once a month,

. . . relative to the preservation of song-birds, fish and game.”


Legislation of this kind undoubtedly marks the commencement of

a phase in the public mind that is likely to assume greater importance

in the near future. As a recent writer states: “ The systematic

study of birds develops both the observational faculties and the

analytical qualities of the mind. The study of the living bird afield

is rejuvenating to both mind and body. The outdoor use of eye,

ear and limb necessitated by field-work tends to fit both the body

and mind of the student for the practical work of life, for it develops

both members and faculties. It brings one into contact with nature

—out into the sunlight, where balmy airs stir the whispering pines

or fresh breezes ripple the blue water.” Very similar ideas are

expressed by Forbush, who writes: “ There is no purer joy in life

than that which may come to all who, rising in the dusk of early



