VALUE OF BIRDS TO MAN. 87 



Birds often have inspired the poets. Bryant's lines " To 

 a Water-fowl, "and Shelley's " Skylark," each exhibit a phase 

 of such inspiration. These are but instances of the stimu- 

 lating power exerted on the mind of man by the bird and 

 its associations. Some of the grandest poems ever written 

 have been dependent on their authors' observation of birds 

 for some touch of nature which has helped to render them 

 immortal. Thus Gray, in his famed "Elegy written in a 

 Country Churchyard " : 



The breezy call of incense-breathing morn, 

 The Swallow twittering from the straw-built shed, 



The Cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn, 

 No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. 



Who, reared in a country home, can fail, as he reads 

 these lines, to recall the twittering of the Swallows under 

 the spreading rafters in the cool of early morning? The 

 mental contemplation of that peaceful pastoral scene, the 

 train of tender recollections of the time of youth and inno- 

 cence, all tending toward better impulses and higher aspira- 

 tions, are largely due to the mention of the familiar bird in 

 its association with the home of childhood. Is not literature 

 the richer for the following lines of Longfellow in his "Birds 

 of Passage"? 



Above, in the light 



Of the star-lit night, 



Swift birds of passage wing their flight 



Through the dewy atmosphere. 



I hear the beat 



Of their pinions fleet, 



As from the land of snow and sleet 



They seek a southern lea. 



/ 



How much of life and color the presence of birds adds to 

 the landscape ! The artist appreciates this. What marine 

 view is complete without its Gulls in flight? How much a 

 flock of wild-fowl adds to a lake or river jscene ! 



Birds are a special boon to child life, and a never-ending 

 source of entertainment to many children who live upon 

 isolated farms, where the observation of birds' habits adds 

 greatly to the rational enjoyment of existence. 



It is not a far cry from the poet to the philosopher, and 



