165 BY-WAYS AND BIRD-NOTES. 
and had studied with especial care and _ inter- 
est the subject of fossil birds. It now seemed 
to me that my child-eyes had, in their swift 
glance, seen far past that gaping young bird— 
far past Archeopteryx and Odontopteryx and 
Ichthyornis—to the original ancestor of the bird, © 
the ancient, honorable and unknown reptile. 
I had received an impression of the archetype. 
Sit down in the woods of spring-time and 
listen to the brown-thrush or the cat-bird or, 
better still, the mocking-bird, singing in the 
fragrant boscage, and you may be sure that 
you hear a lyre thousands upon thousands of 
years old. ‘The earth was a grand and beauti- 
ful ball of water and forests and grassy plains, 
with swarms of birds and insects, and legions 
of wild beasts and myriads of reptiles, a 
long, dreamy, odorous and tuneful age before 
man stood up in presence of his Maker and 
was called good. It would be charming, if 
one could but have the record of the ages all 
arranged, to read the bird-songs backward (as 
one may read backward through the songs of 
man) to their first bubblings in the oldest 
groves. Where was the first blue-bird song 
uttered ? Where did the cerulean wings first 
tremble among the young leaves of spring? 
It is said that science and poetry are not 
friends, that they refuse to walk arm in arm, 
that they scorn each other; yet to my mind 
science seems to dig up the freshest germs of 
poesy, and to set free the eternal essences of 
that creative force which electrifies and puts 
in motion the dormant functions of genius. 
Facts are dry enough and the jargon of the 
doctors is not suited to enrich the poet’s vo- 
cabulary, but between the facts hovers the 
