256 What Birds Have Done With Me 



stand his loyalty and devotion to his choice of a 

 single mate and perhaps they will take off their 

 hats to world voyagers, even though they have to 

 be taken home by the police, late at night. 



The Rose-Breasted Grosbeak on the winter 

 hat of the florid lady, who sits just in front of us 

 at church, is no kind of a teacher of bird lore and 

 I am fully convinced that every florid and devout 

 lady in the congregation might boast the same 

 adornment, the aggregate amounting to quite a 

 little flock, and the flock would leave me in deep, 

 dark and awful ignorance of the things most 

 worth while in the individuality of one of their 

 number. I might even concentrate upon the near- 

 est bird, before and after the prayer and from 

 the opening hymn to the Doxology, without learn- 

 ing that the birds present, in life, could have made 

 that surpliced Choir sound like a Hawaiian Band. 

 Intense concentration upon the possibilities of this 

 bird during firstly, secondly, and thirdly, of the 

 long-winded sermon, might still have left me in 

 shameful ignorance of the fact that this bird, be- 

 yond all other birds, has a full-sized appetite for 

 potato bugs. On the other hand, "Mr. Esau" 

 was a living teacher and taught me all I need to 

 know about Grosbeaks, and at the close of the 

 term I was as much fed up with knowledge as he, 

 with White Grubs. 



"Mourny" and "Mr. Moses" were my primary 



