THE FAERY YEAR 



The Love of Birds 



It is something of a vogue to call the Anglo- 

 Saxon a Philistine. He lives by beef, not by beauty 

 he lacks the " artistic temperament," the " atmo- 

 sphere " of the Latin races. There is a veneer of 

 superficial truth about it. But how is it that the 

 artistic nations, with the eye for beauty and the ear 

 for sound, care so little for beauty in its most 

 exquisite life-form the small singing-bird ? Our 

 summer birds are travelling now to us, and as these 

 fragile warblers pass through South European lands 

 on their way to and from England, they are caught 

 in thousands, and sent to market as food. The old 

 proverb, " A bird in the hand is worth two in the 

 bush," has a sinister sense when applied to the peoples 

 who would esteem a nightingale's tongue from the 

 gourmet's, not the musician's, point of taste. 



Among Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand, there 

 is a large public intensely fond of wild birds. It 

 includes people of all classes. During the last year 

 or two I have had many scores of letters from 

 strangers in all parts of England praising, describing, 

 asking about birds, protesting on their behalf. Some 

 of these have been written on ruled paper in baby 

 handwriting, by mites of about six years old the 

 callow young ; others by rough working men, 

 railway toilers, farm hands. Not all these letters 

 are sage. Many do not know the names and habits 

 of the birds, cannot distinguish between the black- 

 bird's and the song thrush's lay, confuse various 

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