Old Friends and New 257 
plays once for all in attracting us. We are 
drawn to certain birds as to some people by 
peculiarities of voice, manner, and appearance, 
which appeal to us and which in the bird are, 
of course, racial rather than individual. No 
doubt our regard for our human friends is 
less personal than we assume it to be. We 
are largely attracted to men because they 
are representatives of some spiritual, intellec- 
tual, and physical type—a certain species of 
mankind—which appeals to us as more admir- 
able than others. However that may be, in 
our relation to the birds there is an enormous 
advantage, considering the instability of all 
things, in this impersonal, this racial attrac- 
tion. Every spring we greet the warblers 
with that same thrill of pleasure and of sym- 
pathetic interest, and we do not once stop 
to consider that they may not be the same 
individuals of ayearago. For it is the species 
to whom we have given our friendship: not 
certain individuals, but magnolias, parulas, 
black-throated green, and blackburnians in 
general. Once I have acquired a liking for 
the species, every individual of that species 
is my friend thenceforth, whether encoun- 
tered in the Adirondacks or in the cypress 
swamps of the South. The entire race of 
17 
