WITH CHILDREN IN BIRDLAND 71 



of the expedition. Alack for the spirit of the primi- 

 tive savage! The diplomatic rebuke that followed 

 was the first intimation to the Australian boy that 

 bird-observing is not necessarily identical with 

 bird-nesting. 



That was, if my memory serves, well over a decade 

 ago. It is a fair period of probation ; a school move- 

 ment that cannot "find itself" in such space of time 

 has no very definite place awaiting it. But the bird- 

 study movement among Australian children has not 

 taken that long to prove its value. The early ex- 

 perience gave Victoria, New South Wales, and 

 South Australia an indication that they had taken 

 up something that bade fair to be a stimulating 

 force in the life of the child; a subject promising to 

 ease the strain (and frequent pain) of primary 

 education ; something likely, in a phrase, "to live in 

 making others live." 



As the impression deepened into conviction with 

 every individual who took more than the too- 

 common, careless interest in the welfare of the 

 school-child, the cult of Nature-study (using this 

 term for want of a better) gained favor rapidly 

 in circles that were absolutely indifferent, if not 

 actually opposed, to it. Not once, nor twice, 

 but many times, I have listened judiciously to 

 gratuitous "confessions" of regenerate teachers in 

 respect of this "pursuit of triflers." They were all 

 on the same lines based on the principle of "once 

 I was blind, but now I can see." One Victorian 

 pedagogue of standing told the world at large that 

 a boy or girl whose fraternal interest had been 

 claimed by birds showed a marked increase in 



