CHAPTER VI. 
THE NATURALIST AND THE BIRD. 
“ Books, ’tis a dull and endless strife, 
Come hear the woodland Linnet; 
How sweet his music—on my life 
There’s more of wisdom in it. 
And hark how blithe the Throstle sings, 
He, too, is no mean preacher; 
Come forth into the light of things, 
Let Nature be your teacher.” 
Wordsworth. 
The true naturalist, in heart and soul, is he who 
recognizes the bonds of friendship which exist between 
man and beast, and who acts up to them. It is he 
who prizes the feathered tribe; he to whom flight is 
not merely an unsolved riddle, but rather a lovely poem; 
he who becomes sportsman and bird-catcher, so as to 
render himself conversant with birds and their habits of 
life, while he is at the same time their host and protector; 
it is he who lives amongst birds, and associates as it were 
with them; he who looks upon them as the medium 
through which Nature shows her joy and happiness, 
because, through their songs, he feels the echo of the 
same within his own breast. Enquiry, and the thirst for 
knowledge, is the end and aim of that bond of friendship 
which keeps men and birds together. Like every other 
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