CHAPTER XVIII 



OUR COMMON BIRDS 

 Their Life, Work, and Natural Enemies 



Beloved of children, bards and Spring, 



O birds, your perfect virtues bring. 



Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight. 



Your manners for the heart's delight. 



Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof, 



Here weave your chamber weather-proof. 



Forgive our harms, and condescend 



To man, as to a lubber friend. 



And, generous, teach his awkward race 



Courage and probity and grace ! 



Emerson, May-Day. 



Bird study is no trifling fad. Our bird life represents 

 a public property, protected by laws that are beginning to 

 be respected and enforced. We may begin again with 

 a few oral or written language lessons to find out how 

 many birds the children know and what they have already 

 learned about them. 



There are so many books devoted to describing and 

 identifying birds, and all the species which we wish to 

 study are so common, that we may omit the descriptive 

 side. In fact, I should relegate the whole subject of 

 bird nature study to some one of the excellent books we 

 already have were it not for the fact that, with all our 

 books and all our birds, year by year boys and girls are 

 passing through our schools who are not able to recognize 



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