140 BIRDS AND MAN 



a name for some plant or creature which has 

 attracted his attention ; and in many cases the 

 child's new name is suggested by some human associa- 

 tion in the object some resemblance to be seen in 

 form or colour or sound. Not books but the light 

 of nature, the experience of our own early years, 

 the look which no person not blinded by reading 

 can fail to see in a flower, is sufficient to reveal all 

 this hidden wonderful knowledge about the first 

 openings of the heart towards nature, during the 

 remote infancy of the human race. 



From this it will be seen that I am not claiming 

 a discovery ; that what I have called a secret of 

 the charm of flowers is a secret known to every 

 man, woman, and child, even to those of my own 

 friends who stoutly deny that they have any such 

 knowledge. But I think it is best known to chil- 

 dren. What I am here doing is merely to bring 

 together and put in form certain more or less vague 

 thoughts and feelings which I (and therefore all 

 of us) have about flowers ; and it is a small matter, 

 but it happens to be one which no person has 

 hitherto attempted. 



It may be that in some of my readers' minds 

 those who, like the sceptical friends I have men- 

 tioned, are not distinctly conscious of the cause 



