214 What Birds Have Done With Me 



it all, the nest and the egg, the egg and the bird, 

 the 'bird and the flight, the flight and the song, in 

 advance of the fact, if told for truth, it would 

 have taxed the credulity of children and fools. 

 A mass of protoplasm inside a shell, the shell 

 for a few weeks kept warm by the heat of the 

 mother's body, then something alive from within 

 calling for the freedom that life demands, no an- 

 swer from without, no offer of help, then the 

 cramped, puny creature nerved to stupendous ef- 

 fort by the very urge of existence, batters down its 

 dungeon walls and for days may remain blind and 

 helpless, or in twenty-four hours may be a full 

 partaker of the life of its kind, running or swim- 

 ming with the speed of adults. That the Ostrich 

 chick should perform this prodigy is difficult of 

 belief: that the unhatched Humming-bird should 

 do likewise is unthinkable; imagination lays down 

 and will not come to our help. In this way, and 

 in this way only, is bird life continued on this 

 planet, where nest robbing is a business, a pastime 

 and a science. 



In almost every country on the face of the 

 earth, frequently open and above board and again 

 secret and furtively, birds' eggs are articles of 

 merchandise, the trade under the usual laws of 

 trade, scarcity inflating prices. The rarer the 

 species, the higher the price the eggs of some 

 extinct species selling for hundreds of dollars each 



