272 What Birds Have Done With Me 



the flutter of a bird's wing has opened a window 

 for me to the wide, wide sky. Friends from every- 

 where have been clipping and sending me notices 

 of birds appearing in the daily press, and if old 

 Santa Claus found himself at my door with no 

 bird book in his pack for me, I have a notion 

 that he would feel that he had overlooked some- 

 thing. Mine is a bird world and I could not live 

 in any other. They are surely my birds for am I 

 not the "Bird Man" and "The Birds' Attorney"? 

 A Telephone Company once offered me a hundred 

 dollars if I would allow them to clean up a hun- 

 dred rods of trees and shrubs and vines and wild 

 roses growing along a public road near their poles. 

 It greeted me "sair" to have to assure its field 

 man that I no longer had title through adverse 

 possession, the birds in more than twenty years 

 had gained that, and as their legal representative, 

 the best I could do would be to act, if he secured 

 their consent in writing. Not two minutes ago a 

 hardened coquette, aged three, perched on a gate- 

 post, called me, a mere passing acquaintance, to 

 her and whispered, "I seem to care more for you 

 than for any body else." Following the example 

 of my youthful admirer, I want, in the strictest 

 confidence, to whisper into the big ear of the pub- 

 lic: "I seem to care more for some birds than 

 for some people and I don't care if I do." 



Again I feel the lure of the pathway that no 



