New Walks in Old Ways 



conception. The action is identical. 

 Men learn most of their tricks from 

 these folk. But for the birds to copy 

 from, there would have been no right 

 solution of the flying-machine question. 

 No plane has yet come from the hands 

 of human engineers that can be for a 

 moment compared with the purple 

 martin's flight, in point of ease, deli- 

 cacy and dependable efficiency in actual 

 operation. Men are wise only as they 

 succeed at last in divining a part of 

 Nature's secrets. If a Turner is lucky 

 enough merely to reproduce success- 

 fully a vision of "a painted ship upon 

 a painted ocean," we talk of "genius" 

 and "creative power." 



Strolling down this same road the 

 other morning, I reached the point 

 where the trail bends towards a little 

 bridge, and was involuntarily halted 

 by something peculiarly striking in the 

 note of a favorite bird — a brown 

 thrasher, own cousin to the southern 

 mocking-bird — singing his head off on 



[72] 



