146 BIRDS AND MAN 



a strange charm the words that could tell, if 

 we could understand, so much of the forgotten 

 infancy of the human race." 



What a roll of words and what a mighty 

 and mysterious business is here made of a very 

 simple little matter ! It is a charming example 

 of the strange helplessness, not to say imbeciUty, 

 which affects most of those who have been 

 trained in our mind-killing schools ; trained not 

 to think, but taught to go for anything and 

 everything they desire to know to the books. 

 If the books in the British Museum fail to say 

 why our ancestors hundreds of years ago named 

 a flower " None so pretty " or " Love-in-a-mist," 

 why then we must be satisfied to sit in thick 

 darkness with regard to this matter until some 

 heaven-born genius descends to illuminate us ! 

 Yet I daresay there is not a country child who 

 does not occasionally invent a name for some 

 plant or creature which has attracted his atten- 

 tion ; and in many cases the child's new name 

 is suggested by some human association in the 

 object — some resemblance to be seen in form 

 or colour or sound. Not books but the hght 

 of nature, the experience of our own early 



