The Friendship of the Birds 



"If we should let the birds have their way 

 they would voluntarily fall into civilized, if 

 not into domesticated habits. They have no 

 deep-seated hostility toward us; they have 

 not been the aggressors in the long, bitter 

 war of extermination; they have ever sued 

 for peace. Instead of feeling an instinctive 

 enmity, the birds are drawn toward us by 

 the strongest of interests. If nature any- 

 where shows us her friendship and her deter- 

 mination, against all odds, to make that 

 friendship strong, she shows it through the 

 birds. The way they forgive and forget 

 their endless efforts at reconciliation and 

 their sense of obligation, ought to shame us. 

 They sing over every acre that we reclaim, 

 as if we had saved it for them only; and in 

 return they probe the lawns most diligently 

 for worms, they girdle the apple trees for 

 grubs, and gallop over the Whole wide sky 

 for gnats and flies — squaring their account, 

 if may be, for cherries, orchards and chim- 

 neys." — Dallas Lore Sharp. 



