viii Birds Every Child Should Know 



imagination, that high power possessed by hu- 

 mans alone, that hfts them upward step by step 

 into new realms of discovery and joy? If the 

 thouglit of a tiny hummingbird, a mere atom 

 in the universe, migrating from New England 

 to Central America will not stimulate a child's 

 imagination, then all the tales of fairies and 

 giants and beautiful princesses and wicked 

 witches will not cause his sluggish fancy to 

 roam. Poetry and music, too, would fail to 

 stir it out of the deadly commonplace. 



Interest in bird life exercises the sympathies. 

 The child reflects something of the joy of the 

 oriole whose ecstasy of song from the elm on 

 the lawn tells the whereabouts of a dangling 

 "cup of felt" with its deeply hidden treasures. 

 He takes to heart the tragedy of a robin's mud- 

 plastered nest in the apple tree that was washed 

 apart by a storm, and experiences something 

 akin to remorse when he takes a mother bird 

 from the jaws of his pet cat. He listens for the 

 return of the bluebirds to the starch-box home 

 he made for them on top of the grape arbour and 

 is strangely excited and happy that bleak day 

 in March when they re-appear. It is nature 

 sympathy, the growth of the heart, not nature 

 study, the training of the brain, that does most 



for us. 



Neltje Blanchan. 

 Mill Neck, 1906. 



