2O2 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP, vn 



in which Greeks and Romans lived in their earlier 

 stages, great temples, porticoes, villas, palaces, 

 basilicas had sprung up, and even the ordinary 

 dwelling-house, as we know from Juvenal, was 

 lofty, if not always substantial. And as man im- 

 proved his dwellings by aid of his reason, so did 

 the birds follow his footsteps. 



And now I must really close this lecture, in 

 which I have merely done my best to give you a few 

 examples of the way in which the old philosopher 

 treats his subject; of the curious carefulness of his 

 observation in many instances, as well as of the 

 errors into which the first great naturalist was of 

 necessity liable to fall. Let us be willing to forgive 

 him these, and rather render him due honour for his 

 lifelong endeavour to get at truth. Nothing is to 

 me more astonishing in the whole history of thought 

 and knowledge than that the man who wrote the 

 Ethics and Politics should have been capable of put- 

 ting together a work like the one I have been telling 

 you of. It argues a richness of mind, a variety of 

 interest, a universality of thirst for knowledge, with 

 which we have very little acquaintance in this 

 century. 



