76 MATESHIP WITH BIRDS 



Observers' Club, that his early interest in birds was 

 accompanied by a shanghai; whereat a well-known 

 naturalist burst forth, "Good Lord, man, that's the 

 way we all began !" 



On the same principle, a bunch of bush-boys can- 

 didly admit having often robbed birds' nests, but 

 declare that the cruelty of the practice is now ap- 

 parent to them. Better still, there is recognition of 

 the miserable lot of the average cage-bird. "I like," 

 writes one lad, making a smart distinction, "to hear 

 birds singing in the trees rather than crying in a 

 cage." 



A pretty story told by a small girl relates to the 

 succoring of a quail. She found the bird, in the 

 wake of a mowing machine, cruelly torn, being 

 minus half of one wing and half of one leg. Taking 

 the hapless creature home, she tended it carefully, 

 and it lived with her for two years before falling 

 a victim to a cat. Again, a warm child-heart comes 

 into evidence in this note: "A dying baby 'Red- 

 beak' fell out of its nest at my feet. I took it inside 

 and gave it something to eat. Then I climbed the 

 tree and put it back. It seemed all right." 



I like also those quaint little generalising notes in 

 which wells out the joy of the Australian child in 

 its land of sunshine and song. For instance: "The 

 human eye cannot imagine how lovely the hills 

 looked." A rapture, this, akin to the midsummer 

 maze of Nick Bottom: "The eye of man hath not 

 heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is 

 not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his 

 heart to report, what my dream was." 



The pleasures of Bird Day rambling how is a 



