BIRDS 



BIRDS have always been a passion with me ; and 

 I have always thought birds and their nests and 

 eggs about the loveliest things on earth. 



The first thing I can dimly remember seeing as a 

 very small child was a bird's nest. It was a black- 

 bird's, built in an ivied stump or stem of an old 

 thorn tree against the park palings of Enham Place. 

 Precisely the same feelings fill me to-day when I 

 find the first song thrush's or the first blackbird's 

 nest of the year, or the first chiffchaff's, that filled 

 me as a child. I put it confidently to any man or 

 woman who really is keen about birds and I believe 

 there must be a hundred thousand or so in England 

 alone who are keen about them. Is there anything 

 in nature or art that gives a more exquisite 

 sensation than the discovery of these early 

 Spring nests gives us year after year ? Is there 

 anything that gives a more delicate little thrill of 

 pleasure ? 



There simply is not. There never can or will be. 



No advance in knowledge and understanding of 

 the most beautiful things in nature, art, literature 

 and music can ever lift us above the intense admira- 

 tion, the passion, for wild birds and their nests that 

 somehow came all unconsciously into our lives, 

 very likely before we were educated at all. 



