Old Friends and New 259 
yellow, they are ever young and sing the same 
songs. Thus they keep alight the fire of 
youth in us and bring back our poetic moods, 
our early visions. When I come under the 
spell of the bird’s song I am again that self 
that listened last year—twenty years ago— 
that self which has associated some vision of 
spring with the bluebird’s warble descending 
from the bleak sky, and felt the answering 
thrill of a perennial quality in myself; which 
has responded to the simple charm of the song 
sparrow’s trill from the bare hedgerows, by 
an exquisite consciousness of purity and sim- 
plicity of its own; and has felt itself to be a 
wandering minstrel with the oriole and with 
the rose-breasted grosbeak, when each year 
their song was heard again, recognising that 
fugitive spirit of poesy and of song which 
they embodied, to be its very own. 
The personality of birds has always im- 
pressed me: the fact that they have such 
powers of expression and that there is so re- 
markable a difference in their songs, in the 
quality of tone, the manner of delivery, and 
the significance of their voices. Some have so 
much to express, somuch temperament in com- 
parison with others. Some like the thrushes 
are spiritual; others like the orioles and gros- 
