160 BIRDS AND MAN 



But I am going too far, and perhaps making 

 an enemy of a reader when I would much prefer 

 to have him (or her) for a friend. 



I have named few flowers, and those all the 

 most familiar kinds, because it seemed to me 

 that many examples would have had a confusing 

 effect on readers who do not intimately know 

 many species, or do not remember the exact 

 colour in each case, and are therefore unable to 

 reproduce in their minds the exact expression 

 — the feeling which every flower conveys. On 

 the other hand, the reader who knows and loves 

 flowers, who has in his mind the distinct images 

 of many scores, perhaps of two or three hundreds 

 of species, can add to my example many more 

 from his own memory. 



There is one objection to the explanation 

 given here of the cause of the charm of certain 

 flowers, which will instantly occur to some 

 readers, and may as well be answered in advance. 

 This view, or theory, must be wrong, a reader 

 wiU perhaps say, because my own preference is 

 for a yellow flower (the primrose or daffodil, let 

 us say), whi'ch to me has a beauty and charm 

 exceeding all other flowers. 



