86 USEFUL BIRDS. 



attempted to look at birds solely from the utilitarian point 

 of view, and to demonstrate the fact that their contributions 

 to man's welfare have at least a material value. Now let us 

 turn for a moment from the contemplation of such utility 

 of birds as money can measure to "some of the higher and 

 nobler uses which birds subserve to man." In so doing we 

 step at once from the beaten path of economic ornithology 

 into a boundless realm, sacred to art, letters, sentiment, 

 and poetry on the one hand, while on the other lie the fair 

 fields in which we may take up, if we will, the fascinating 

 study of birds, ^vhich may end merely in delightful experi- 

 ences, or lead to the class room, the museum, the laboratory, 

 or the closet of the systematist. Wherever it may lead us, 

 this phase of our subject is of the highest importance, and 

 demands the most serious consideration . Although presented 

 last, its benefactions should perhaps come first among the 

 items which go to make up the sum of our indebtedness to 

 birds. 



The beauty of l)irds, the music of their songs, the weird 

 wildness of their calls, the majesty of their soaring flight, 

 the mystery of their migrations, have ever been subjects of 

 absorbing interest to poets, artists, and nature lovers every- 

 where. Prominent among the undying memories of men 

 are mental pictures of the birds of childhood, their coming 

 in the spring, their nesting, and their chosen haunts. Many 

 an exiled emigrant longs in vain to hear again the outpour- 

 ing melody of the Skylark, as it soars above the fields of 

 England. Many a New England boy, shut in by western 

 mountains, yearns for the bubbling, joyous song of the Bob- 

 olink in the June meadows. The characters and traits of 

 birds, their loves and battles, their skill in home building, 

 their devotion to their young, their habits and ways, — all 

 are of human interest. Birds have become symbolic of cer- 

 tain human characteristics ; and so the common species have 

 come to l)e so interwoven with our art and literature that 

 their names are household words. What biblical scholar is 

 not familiar with the birds of the Bible ? Shakespeare makes 

 over six hundred references to birds or bird life. Much of 

 the best literature would lose half its charm were it shorn of 

 poetic allusions to birds. 



