4 INTRODUfTTOX. 



This little book should do much to popularize bird-study and 

 to spread a knowledge of our common birds among our people. 

 I hope devoutly that an effort will be made to give them suit- 

 able names. We should give them names a poet or a child 

 can use. A Chaucer poring lovingly over his favorite flower, 

 the daisy, could call it by a name which is itself full of poetry. 

 Even the unimaginative clown, Nick Bottom, could sing of 



"The Ouzel Cock, so black of hue, 

 With orange-tawny bill, 

 The Throstle with his note so true. 



The Wren with little quill. 

 The Finch, the Sparrow, and the Lark. 

 The plain-song Cuckoo gray." 



And a Burns can invoke the Throstle in lines as musical as the 

 song of the bird itself — "And thou mellow mavis, thnt hails 

 the night-fa'." 



But how shall an Australian bard sing of "The Red-rumped 

 Acanthiza," or of that delightful songster, "The Rufous- 

 breasted Thickhead"? Australian Nature-poetry will be han- 

 dicapped until our children give names like "Bobolink," and 

 "Chickadee," and "Whip-poor-will," and ".Tacky Winter," to our 

 birds. 



"Oriel," in the Argus, some time ago, showed how hard it is 

 to write of love's young dream in Australian verse. 



"Sweetheart, we watched the evening sky grow pale 

 And drowsy sweetness stole away our senses, 

 While ran adown the swamp the Pectoral Kail, 

 The shy Hypotaenidia philippinensis. 

 "How sweet a thing is love! Sweet as the rose, 

 Fragrant as flowers, fair as the sunlight beaming! 

 Only the Sooty Oyster-Catcher knows 



How sweet to us, as there we lingered dreaming 

 "Dear, all the secret's ours. The Sharp-tailed Stint 

 Spied, but he will not tell — though you and T 

 Paid Cupid's debts from Love's own golden mint, 

 While Yellow-Bellied Shrike-Tits fluttered nigh. 

 "The Honey-eaters heard ; the Fuscous — yea, 

 The Warty-faced, the Lunulated, too; 

 But this kind feathered tribe will never say 

 What words you said to me, or I to you. 

 "The golden bloom was glorious in the furze, 



And gentle twittering came from out the copses ; 

 It was the Carinated Flycatchers, 



Or else the black ATonarcha melanopsis. 

 "That day our troth we plighted — blissful hour, 

 Beginning of a^ joy a whole life long! 

 And while the wide world seemed to be in flower. 



The Chestnut-rumped Ground-Wren burst forth in song." 



It surely would not be amiss if the Bird Observers' Clubs 

 throughout Australia, and the Royal Australasian Ornitholo- 

 gists' Union, enlisted the aid of the State Education Depart- 

 ments, and endeavored to find out what names the children use 

 for the birds of their district. Executive committees upon 

 bird names are good; but a good name is not evoked by argu- 

 ments in committee. Tt ofttimes comes from the happy 

 inspiration of some child who loves the bird. Al present the 

 names given by classifiers are often an offence. A few even- 



