The Love Element in Bird Protection 137 



the very finest kind of blank verse into every-day 

 life. There is no other bird like the Scarlet 

 Tanager in the North woods and if you think it 

 pagan to make a deity out of him, at least en- 

 throne him as a High Priest in the temple of 

 Beauty. 



Quite a good many years ago, we had snow on 

 the thirtieth of May, and being out driving with 

 my family we came around the base of a hill, and 

 there before us not a hundred feet away, in a dead 

 tree, were two birds not ten feet apart, one an 

 Indigo-Bunting and the other a Scarlet Tanager. 

 A little daughter who had been studying the flags 

 of all nations, said they were the colors of the 

 English flag and then we saw them together 

 against the snow-covered hill Red, White and 

 Blue. Looking back across a war-devastated 

 world where a Peace Conference is now in session, 

 the remote Memorial Day becomes exceptional 

 made so by two birds that quickly separated and 

 snow that melted like a dream that all taken to- 

 gether, for a brief moment gave us the colors in 

 the flags of the three greatest nations on the face 

 of the earth England, France, America. 



Next to the Tanager, the Indigo-Bunting is our 

 most beautiful bird. In the estimation of very 

 many, he stands for the cloudless sky, the halcyon, 

 the perfect day. Sky-blue, like truth in which 

 there is no mixture of error, the whole apparel is 



