FOREWORD 



"/ wish I did his power possess 

 That I might learn, fleet bird, from thee, 

 What our vain systems only guess, 

 And know from what wild wilderness 

 You came across the sea." 



In the examination of some aspects and forms 

 of life it is often best to cast aside the complex ma- 

 chinery of cold and calculating analysis, and to 

 look only with the eye of love and sympathy. In 

 this work it is my purpose to reject the limitations 

 of unsympathetic research, and to endeavour to see 

 beyond formal classifications, and to understand the 

 spirit, emotions and impulses in the lives of our 

 feathered friends of the air. 



By this means many new discoveries have been 

 made which include a universal truth, where a too 

 minute and laborious logic would have proved a 

 hopeless labyrinth. The syllogistic method sig- 

 nally fails to comprehend or appreciate the real 

 spiritual beauty of the life of other species than our 

 own. It ascribes no intelligence or spirituality even 

 to birds, and brands their most efficient activities 

 as "instinctive." 



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