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I was able at the close of February, 1902, to witness a striking example of the results of wild-bird protection in increasing some species of wild-fowl which for half a century had steadily dwindled and disappeared, and were practically unknown anywhere in the neighbourhood of London.
That was the great work I was asked to do for them that shy, mysterious girl with the melodious wild-bird voice was the evil being I was asked to slay with poisoned arrows!
The poor old peddler would approach with a courtesy, proud of being called, and standing with one foot upon the threshold she would present her basket for our inspection. Her neat dress was set off by the white linen sleeves that she always wore. While she uncovered her basket I would look longingly, like a caged wild-bird, far down the cold and deserted streets.
Then, in one single, watery, weak stab of apology for sunshine, on the top of a fowl-shed, he surrendered himself to what, in wild-bird land, is known as the "sunning reaction," which really consists of giving body and mind utterly to the sun and complete rest. And then he left. Now, it was no chance that he left. Birds don't do business that way.
There are only a few kinds of improper "millinery" feathers that it is possible to sell here under the law. Thanks to the long and arduous campaign of the National Association of Audubon Societies, founded and for ten years directed by gallant William Dutcher, you now see on the streets of New York very, very little wild-bird plumage save that from game birds.
The blackbird burst into a ripple of golden throaty notes, and from some distant green spot in the city an unknown wild-bird answered with a frenzy of liquid trills until the sparrows paused in their ablutions to look up with restless chirps. Then a butterfly came and sat on a cluster of heliotrope and waved his crimson-banded wings in the hot sunshine.
And then the polecat took her, leaping with unexpected agility, and pulling her down out of limitless freedom and safety. There was just a rush, a snap, a wild-bird squawk, and down the pair went, to the accompaniment of furiously fluttering wings and in a cloud of feathers. She had made a slight mistake in her calculations, that peewit, a matter of perhaps a quarter of a second, but enough.
He was too utterly worn out to think of moving. When he woke the sun was streaming into the room, and behind him sat the tiny Mary on the edge of the bed, the rounded apple cheeks and wild-bird eyes aglow with mischief and delight.
He was too utterly worn out to think of moving. When he woke the sun was streaming into the room, and behind him sat the tiny Mary on the edge of the bed, the rounded apple cheeks and wild-bird eyes aglow with mischief and delight.
Aeroplanes, crossing singly or in wild-bird formations, are so common in the sky of Faery that every one in those parts, while turning his own eyes inevitably upwards, secretly thinks his neighbour lamentably rustic and unsophisticated for looking at them.