United States or Barbados ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"I don't want you to shoot the poor bird; I only want to hear your argument!" The chief could not immediately reply, Ian came to his rescue. "There are qualities in life," he said. "One cannot think the fish-life so fine, so full of delight as the bird-life!" "No. But," said Mercy, "have the fishes not as good a right to their life as the birds?"
For several hundred generations of bird-life, they and their ancestors have colonised their sable communities in the baronial park-trees of England, and their descendants promise to abide for as many generations to come.
So it proved to be, and we planted our seats against trees for backs, and arranged ourselves to stay. The dog seeing this preparation, and recognizing it as somewhat permanent, with a heavy sigh laid himself out full length, and composed himself to sleep. The work over that nest was one of the prettiest bits of bird-life I ever watched.
At every corner was erected an artistically designed cast-iron road sign; instead of the unsightly wooden ones, cast-iron automobile warnings were placed at every dangerous spot; community bulletin-boards, to supplant the display of notices on trees and poles, were placed at the railroad station; litter-cans were distributed over the entire community; a new railroad station and post-office were secured; the station grounds were laid out as a garden by a landscape architect; new roads of permanent construction, from curb to curb, were laid down; uniform tree-planting along the roads was introduced; bird-houses were made and sold, so as to attract bird-life to the community; toll-gates were abolished along the two main arteries of travel; the removal of all telegraph and telephone poles was begun; an efficient Boy Scout troop was organized, and an American Legion post; the automobile speed limit was reduced from twenty-four to fifteen miles as a protection to children; roads were regularly swept, cleaned, and oiled, and uniform sidewalks advocated and secured.
And I have a grievance of my own, viz., boys shooting with blunderbusses and powder, and with so little wit that my eyes flash with anger every time I see them creeping on their stomachs towards a starling or a couple of lean ring-plovers, and I shout and cast stones to warn the innocent creatures, since the farmer of Jæren is, as it were, his thrall's thrall, and lets the servant-boys make a fool of him and play the concertina all night, which might be put up with, but no powder and shooting should be allowed, so that Jæren may not become a desert for bird-life, and only concertinas left and rascals of boys on their stomachs as above.
Either camp out or settle down for a month or two in a hut, with one of the country people to cook. There must be sport, or agriculture, or village characters, or architecture, or botany, or geology to study: bird-life and bird-watching are never-ending interests; the fields are never empty.
That nothing can give a house such a homelike appearance as a thatched roof and leaded panes, I am perfectly convinced. To a Canadian the bird-life of the plain was marvellous. There were birds by the tens of thousands.
The sympathy with, and knowledge of beast-life and bird-life are worthy of Mr. Kipling, and the grotesque names are just what children like. Dinewan and Goomblegubbon should take their place with Rikki Tikki and Mr. Kipling's other delightful creatures. But there is here no Mowgli, set apart in the jungle as a man.
In the level meadow from among the tall grasses and white-flowering wild parsley a landrail called 'crake, crake, ceaselessly. There was a sense of rest and quiet, and with it a joyousness of bird-life, such as should be about an English homestead.
The distant cawing of the crows sounded more gruesome than ever amidst such surroundings; but there was no sign of bird-life to be seen. It was as though the little feathered creatures found this region too lonely even for their nest building. Not even a red or gray squirrel frisked around a tree, or boldly defied the intruders of his wilderness haunt.
Word Of The Day