41 



Farmer's Wasted Opportunity. 



As the birds are God's messengers, so should the farmer be 

 the custodian of nature's secrets and above the smirch of saint seducing 

 gold. No man has a grander opportunity to appreciate the infinity 

 of the Creator than he who rises with the lark. Drudgery and 

 grinding care, I grant you, are often his lot, but snow-bound winter 

 days and long winter evenings away from the lure of the town give 

 hours for close converse with book and microscope. The jugglery 

 and jingle of dollars, especially in the marts of trade, in this money 

 grubbing age, at times dwarf, deaden, and almost destroy our love 

 of nature. The farther we get from civilization, the closer seems 

 man's head to the ground, and in potato patch or hay field he often 

 appears unmindful of the uplift that comes through communion with 

 that same nature. 



"I laugh at the lore and pride of man, 

 At sophist's school, and the learned clan; 

 For w-hat are they all in their high conceit 

 When man in the bush with God may meet?" 



In that morning stroll, one of the earliest greeters was the 

 bobolink, rising from the meadow and fairly bubbling over with his 

 melodious song of joy, a song that stayed with me through distracting 

 days. 



More rarely, but at earlier and later hours, and in contradistinc- 

 tion to the glorious warble of the bobolink, (the reed bird of the 

 south, or Bob-o-Linkon) came nocturnal "Poor Will's" bid for 

 sympathy, and along the same line, but at more normal hours, 

 the plaintive note of the Phoebe bird and in the twilight hour that 

 wonder warble from one of the sweetest choristers of earth's oft 

 invisible choir, the thrush, pouring forth its evening song. 



Bird Temperaments. 



We enjoyed studying bird temperaments, and tracing resem- 

 blances to the human. In sp te of the hackneyed statement that 

 in an animal we find but one quality accentuated; e. g.; faithfulness 

 in the dog, ambition in the horse, selfishness in the hog, in birddom 

 were found varied qualities. For instance, the kingfisher showed 

 some distinctive old bachelor traits, fairly reveling in solitude, rarely 

 consorting in numbers, methodical in habit ; generally frequent- 

 ing the same hunting ground, fishing in the same stream, and perch- 

 ing on the same watch tower tree times without number. The rasp- 

 ing, strident voiced blue jay is the best example of the jay-human 

 who egotistically bores both friend and adjacent stranger in car and 

 theatre with meaningless chatter, he who loudly rehearses his unim- 

 portant personal doings, gluttonously feeding on half-hearted excla- 

 mations forced by courtesy from ennuied listeners. 



