THE HOME OF A BIRD 173 



THE HOME AND COUNTRY 

 OF A BIRD. 



From time to time there arise catch-phrases of 

 criticism which, having a certain speciousness, acquire 

 a vogue in argument not unlike that of some popular 

 air, which comes no one knows whence, has a short, 

 furious life, and disappears no one cares whither. 

 Thus it has for some time past been a habit of some 

 who sit in judgement upon works dealing with 

 aspects of natural life, to deprecate the interpretation 

 of the actions and habits of bird or beast in 

 terms that are held to refer rather to human 

 actions and habits, and therefore to be inappli- 

 cable to the case of creatures of lower faculty. 

 There is sufficient truth in this contention, and 

 enough ground in some recent writing upon the ways 

 of birds and beasts, to justify such an objection. 

 Prompted, perhaps, by human feelings, such writers 

 appear to desire to " humanise" the objects of their 

 sympathy, as if by so doing to bring them into 

 closer fellowship with themselves. But such a 

 course can only end in stripping things natural 

 of their own individual charm, substituting for it 

 a confused image of ourselves that is, indeed, neither 

 we nor they. The ways of Nature's other children 

 are only in part our ways : in part we understand 

 them ; the rest is hidden, elusive, to be sought out 



