My Birds at Brinsop Court.



205



attuned to Nature’s sounds, nor can they see and hear in the

actions and voices of birds what one sees and hears oneself. If a

bird does not behave as a human, it is called a fool, and even a


d-d fool! I often think that to higher spirits toe might possibly


appear in that light. To them may we not be what apes and

gorillas and kangaroos are to us ? To them we probably appear to

.gibber and jump in foolish ways ; that is, we should appear to, were

those in higher planes not more understanding than we. It is good

to be endowed with a faculty, an insight, an appreciation to see

beauty in everything. There is beauty in the bellow of the blast, as

■Gilbert wrote.


And so that curious rasping grunt of the Flamingos takes me

away to some sunlit lagoon, w T hich I have never seen in this earth

life, where I can picture rank upon rank, squadron after squadron of

the spindle-legged giraffe of the birds, rosy in the full light, rosier

still as the rays of rising and setting sun fall upon them.


This pond at Brinsop is ideal, shallow with a good foundation

■of soft mud, and springs to keep it clear. Eight European and one

of the beautifully coloured Bed Flamingo from Mexico. The eight

Common Flamingos passed last winter at the Wonder Zoo at

Olympia, and when the show was finished Herr Hagenbeck sent

them to me. They arrived at 10.30 p.m. on the 7th of March. I

had given them up, and was going to bed, when a loud banging

at a side door leading into a paved loggia made me exclaim “ The

Flamingos! ” The man who had knocked said that they had

arrived at Hereford (6i miles distant) in such large crates that he

had taken upon himself, with assistance, to remove them and put

them all into a small motor van, loose !


Fetching a lantern, I traversed an orchard to the gate outside

which the taxi stood. When I flashed the light of the lantern to

the window I could have believed that eight damsels, all dressed in

pink and white and showing a good deal of leg, had returned from a

ball, or else from the theatre, where they had taken part in a ballet.

How they had all managed to keep on their legs whilst being driven

rapidly for 6i miles I don’t know, especially as the last 200 yards of

the road was all ruts. My bird-keeper came out, and the odd man.

Four of us tucked a Flamingo under each arm, and stumbling along



