Introduction 



(E see with what we are; and what we see is con- 

 stantly changing us for better or for worse. If we 

 look for ugliness, we see ugliness, and our spiritual growth 

 is abnormal and deformed. If we look for beauty, the 

 beautiful meets us everywhere and transforms our minds 

 and hearts. 



The past decade has witnessed an almost unparal- 

 leled turning of men to Nature, seeking refreshment and 

 renewal through her beauty and her mystery. Men have 

 not always looked at Nature in this way, nor do all to- 

 day. To primitive man she brought fear and awe and 

 wonder. Many centuries must pass before a Words- 

 worth could declare "that Nature never did betray the 

 heart that loved her." And yet from the very beginning 

 men must have thought of the birds particularly of 

 those whose migrations were the most striking, and of the 

 eagle and others that seemed in their soaring to touch the 

 very heavens as allied with clouds and winds and stars 

 very closely to the mysterious unseen and unknown. So 

 in the earliest attempts at literature we find the birds, 

 often in simple reference or figure, often in myth or leg- 

 end. In the literature of all races we find them and in the 

 literature of all times. 



The compiler of this book, an enthusiastic, intelli- 

 gent lover and student of Nature, one who understands 

 the meaning of Nature as a resource in life, one who has 

 spent many years helping others to see, to feel, and to 

 know the beauty and the mystery of the flowers, the birds, 

 the woods and the fields, has brought together herein from 

 those who have entered into and understood bird life the 

 myths, legends and traditions; the pregnant thoughts from 



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