86 USEFUL BIRDS. 
attempted to look at birds solely from the utilitarian point 
of view, and to demonstrate the fact that their contributions 
to man’s welfare have at least a material value. Now let us 
turn for a moment from the contemplation of such utility 
of birds as money can measure to “some of the higher and 
nobler uses which birds subserve to man.” In so doing we 
step at once from the beaten path of economic ornithology 
into a boundless realm, sacred to art, letters, sentiment, 
and poetry on the one hand, while on the other lie the fair 
fields in which we may take up, if we will, the fascinating 
study of birds, which may end merely in delightful experi- 
ences, or lead to the class room, the museum, the laboratory, 
or the closet of the systematist. Wherever it may lead us, 
this phase of our subject is of the highest importance, and 
demands the most serious consideration. Although presented 
last, its benefactions should perhaps come first among the 
items which go to make up the sum of our indebtedness to 
birds. 
The beauty-of birds, the music of their songs, the weird 
wildness of their calls, the majesty of their soaring flight, 
the mystery of their migrations, have ever been subjects of 
absorbing interest to poets, artists, and nature lovers every- 
where. Prominent among the undying memories of men 
are mental pictures of the birds of childhood, their coming 
in the spring, their nesting, and their chosen haunts. Many 
an exiled emigrant longs in vain to hear again the outpour- 
ing melody of the Skylark, as it soars above the fields of 
England. Many a New England boy, shut in by western 
mountains, yearns for the bubbling, joyous song of the Bob- 
olink in the June meadows. The characters and traits of 
birds, their loves and battles, their skill in home building, 
their devotion to their young, their habits and ways, — all 
are of human interest. Birds have become symbolic of cer- 
tain human characteristics ; and so the common species have 
come to be so interwoven with our art and literature that 
their names are household words. What biblical scholar is 
not familiar with the birds of the Bible? Shakespeare makes 
over six hundred references to birds or bird life. Much of 
the best literature would lose half its charm were it shorn of 
poetic allusions to birds. 
