20 Bird Day Book 



summer firmament hang on the wall of the sky against a setting 

 of immutable blue ; the trees are motionless ; the glassy waters of 

 the lake too idle to curve and break upon the shore. Nothing speaks 

 of life or action. Suddenly, hitherto unseen in leafy tracery, a bird 

 rushes out and up into the air, telling the sunshine all its joy. One 

 can almost hear the mechanism start. The world begins to live and 

 move. What artist is there who does not know this? Even when 

 painting either of the two most majestic scenes on the earth — the 

 ocean or the Himalayas — he adds this stimulating power to his 

 canvas. 



To turn from the palette to the pen, what poet is there who 

 has not been inspired by birds ? From the background of my mem- 

 ory a thousand instances of such inspiration come leaping forth. 

 Shelley, Coleridge, and Longfellow, to mention three only of our 

 singers, have been each rendered immortal in virtue of the power 

 exerted on their minds by the bird. "To a Skylark," "The Ancient 

 Mariner," and "The Birds of Killingsworth" are poems that are 

 imperishable. 



The Mexicans felt the poetry when they looked upon the hum- 

 ming-birds as emblems of the soul, as the Greeks regarded the but- 

 terfly, and held that the spirits of their warriors who had died in 

 the defense of their religion were transformed into these exquisite 

 creatures in the mansion of the sun. 



Earth holds no joy to the eye more sweet than the sight of one 

 of these living gems as it flits to and fro with the shrillest vibration 

 of swiftly beating wings, hovers for an instant in the shade of a 

 pendulous blossom, shoots out again into the sunshine, darts away 

 after an insect, wheels round and round in sheer exuberance of 

 spirit, returns to sip at the nectared cup, then flashes up again, glit- 

 tering with all the colors of the prism, into its home in the air. 



Was all this beauty for no purpose but for the gratification of a 

 passing fashion? Is man constitutionally unable to realize that in 

 the beauty of these feathered jewels there is a value greater than the 

 value that is entered in a ledger ? Children gather flowers of the 

 field, and, presently, their fleeting fancy sated, toss them aside to 

 wither and die. But the seeds, the roots, remain. The daisy will 

 bloom another year ; the cowslip will stain the meadows yellow as of 

 yore ; but these blossoms of the air will never bloom again. Once 

 gone, they are gone forever. — James Buckland. 



