BIRDS 8 1 



grow like those of Europe, the traveller seems to find 

 something wanting. For a long time he cannot tell 

 what it is, until at last it dawns on him that it is the 

 stirring song of our birds.^ 



But it is not the song alone that makes us love the 

 birds. To know a bird's nest and watch daily the care 

 of the parents for their helpless young is a source of 

 purest joy to our children. The birds are not far 

 removed from children, and resemble them especially 

 in their liveliness and their unfailing spirits. They 

 seem not only to understand art, but to have also the 

 nature of the artist. 



Hence it is that painters feel themselves akin to the 

 birds. A man died in Heligoland in 1897 who had 

 seen the island for the first time as an artist of twenty- 

 three, and was so enchanted with the bird-life circling 

 high above, that he devoted himself entirely to the 

 study of birds. We shall have much to say of this 

 Heinrich Gatke by-and-by. 



But is not that which gives us pleasure likely to 

 prove dangerous to the birds themselves? It is true 

 that the inhabitants of the air are secured from many 

 enemies by their rapid flight and their great agility. 

 But does not their song bring them to the notice of 

 marauders ? We know that many birds have light 

 shades of colour, and these are conspicuous against the 

 background, and must betray their possessor from afar. 

 How could such a shade be brought about by natural 

 selection? And when we see that, as a rule, only the 

 males are brightly coloured, we have a new problem. 



^ So I have heard from many who have travelled in Japan. 



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