OUR COMMON BIRDS 



307 



of the millions of beautiful wings and building nests and 

 eating bills and singing throats. Aside from their intel- 

 lectual and aesthetic values the paramount service of the 

 birds lies in their power to 

 destroy insects. For this 

 work we have a vast mech- 

 anism in nature, an army 

 plastic almost as air, on 

 wings, powerful and beauti- 

 ful, able to carry their fly- 

 ing squadrons hundreds and 

 even thousands of miles 

 whither food abounds and 

 insects threaten destruction 

 to vegetation. 



In studying living things 

 we should bear in mind the 

 truth, stated often in these 

 words : As long as there is life there is hope. In every- 

 thing that lives there are infinite possibilities. No seed or 

 egg is so tiny but that it may hide the possibility of cover- 

 ing the world with forms 

 of its kind in an incred- 

 ibly short time. A pair 

 of bird's eggs, with proper 

 care by the children, could 

 produce in ten years a pair 

 of birds for every child in 

 the land. Let us consider for a moment the possibilities 

 that lie hidden within the blue shells of a pair of 

 robin's eggs. Allowing that ten young may be produced 



Think, every morning when the sun peeps 



through 



The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, 

 How jubilant the happy birds renew 

 Their old, melodious madrigals of love ! 

 And when you think of this, remember too 

 'Tis always morning somewhere, and above 

 The awakening continents, from shore to 



shore, 

 Somewhere the birds are singing, evermore. 



The summer came, and all the birds were 



dead ; , 

 The days were like hot coals ; the very 



ground 



Was burned to ashes ; in the orchards fed 

 Myriads of caterpillars, and around 

 The cultivated fields and garden beds 

 Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and 



found 

 No foe to check their march, till they had 



made 

 The land a desert without leaf or shade. 



LONGFELLOW, Birds of Killingivorth. 



A bird came down the walk : 

 He didn't know I saw ; 

 He bit an angleworm in halves 

 And ate the fellow, raw. 



And then he drank a dew 



From a convenient grass, 



And then hopped sideways to the wall 



To let a beetle pass. 



EMILY DICKINSON, Poems, p. 140. 



