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EVER since the study of nature revived in this century at the 

 close of the Great War, the observation of our native birds and 

 their habits has possessed peculiar attractions for all quiet- 

 minded people. No more charming recreation can be con- 

 ceived, when its prosecution calls men to the varied scenery of 

 English woodlands, to the sides of ancient rivers, the summits 

 of the Lake mountains, or even the solitude of the wintry shore. 

 But without going further afield than the lawn or garden, it is 

 quite possible to develop a whole province of ornithological 

 research, which ordinary people for the most part systematically 

 ignore. Still further narrowing the field of view, many invalids 

 have found an occupation congenial to their infirm energies, 

 and just sufficiently absorbing to rouse the interest of a jaded 

 mind, in watching the idiosyncrasies of birds allured by daily 

 doles of food to their window-ledges. Cordial intimacies, too, 

 have in this manner been struck up between the wise-looking 

 jackdaws of the Bodleian Library (the modern substitutes for 

 Athene's owls) and their unplumed fellow bipeds in the college 

 rooms which overlook that classic haunt. Nor is it only in 

 novels that sempstresses and clerks have learnt cheerfulness, 

 and maintained at a higher level the flow of sympathy and 

 tender affections, by tending a lark or canary within the still 

 more confined space of a cage. He was a true benefactor of 

 the human family who in the sixteenth century (as Bechstein 

 supposes) introduced this latter bird into England from the 

 Fortunate Isles ; no computation can gauge the additional 

 store of contentment and kindliness which thereby accrued to 



