CHAPTER II. 
BOYHOOD AND BIRDS. 
The Hunter Naturalist is formed in childhood. " The little 
leaven thatleaveneth the whole lump," commenceth its strange 
ferment in that unconscious time when the sun is yet the gol- 
den wonder, and all of earth's apparelings glitter in the splen- 
dor of the dew. 
Why is it that with our scathed brows relaxed we watch 
the gambols of the "little ones" with such pleasure? Is it 
not that the sweet simplicity and natural grace of every im- 
pulse and movement of the healthy child recalls our earliest 
associations of the lovable, the piquant and the pleasing, as 
exhibited in the life of the Natural World ? 
We may grow to be paste-board, and painted men and 
women, to be sure, and learn to admire the antics of bedizened 
monkeys, which would be even miscalled " Human Brats !" 
— ^but such terrific perversions, thanks to the illimitable blue 
that is universed in the deep eye of one true child of God and 
Nature ! — can do little harm. We pity while we despise — 
yet, in the other, the chubby insolence of exuberant fun 
provokes the laughter of deep joy. Ha ! ha 1 we laugh, and 
let our sides go quaking with the tranquil stir of bliss that 
God has left us something natural even in the children of our 
loins as well as in his " unhoused wilds !" 
If I feel now that the sanctifying pleasure of renewing the 
reminiscences of my earlier life in connection with Birds, 
and Flowers, and wild scenes, can afford to others a proxi- 
