142 BIRDS AND MAN 



appeared almost an inevitable outcome of the one 

 last discussed, must be my excuse for introducing 

 a chapter on flowers in a book on birds — or birds 

 and man. But an excuse is hardly needed. It 

 must strike most readers that a great fault of 

 books on birds is, that there is too much about 

 birds in them, consequently that a chapter about 

 something else, which has not exactly been 

 dragged in, may come as a positive rehef. 



I have somewhere read a very ancient legend, 

 which tells that man was originally made of many 

 materials, and that at the last a bunch of Avild 

 flowers was gathered and thrown into the mixture 

 to give colour to his eyes. It is a pretty story, 

 but might have been better told, since it is certain 

 that flowers which have delicate and beautiful 

 flesh-tints are attractive mainly on that account, 

 just as blue and some purples delight us chiefly 

 because of their associations with the human iris. 

 The skin, too, needed some beautiful colour, and 

 there were red as well as blue flowers in the 

 bunch ; and the red flowers being most abundant 

 in nature and in greater variety of tints, give us 



