viii Birds Every Child Should Know 
imagination, that high power possessed by hu- 
mans alone, that lifts them upward step by step 
into new realms of discovery and joy? If the 
thought of a tiny hummingbird, a mere atom 
in the universe, migrating from New England 
to Central America will not stimulate a child’s 
imagination, then all the tales of fairies and 
giants and beautiful princesses and wicked 
witches will not cause his sluggish fancy to 
roam. Poetry and music, too, would fail to 
stir it out of the deadly commonplace. 
Interest in bird life exercises the sympathies. 
The child reflects something of the joy of the 
oriole whose ecstasy of song from the elm on 
the lawn tells the whereabouts of a dangling 
“cup of felt’’ with its deeply hidden treasures. 
He takes to heart the tragedy of a robin’s mud- 
plastered nest in the apple tree that was washed 
apart by a storm, and experiences something 
akin to remorse when he takes a mother bird 
from the jaws of his pet cat. He listens for the 
return of the bluebirds to the starch-box home 
he made for them on top of the grape arbour and 
is strangely excited and happy that bleak day 
in March when they re-appear. It is nature 
sympathy, the growth of the heart, not nature 
study, the training of the brain, that does most 
for us. 
Neltje Blanchan. 
Mill Neck, 1906. 
