Bird Biographies

								

Sons for the use of three extracts from Dr. Herrick's "Home Life of Wild
Birds," and to Charles Scribner's Sons for Henry van Dyke's rendering of
the song sparrow's song. I acknowledge also with thanks my obligation to
Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, for his permission to use six color-plates of
the National Association of Audubon Societies and to quote from the
Educational Leaflets of the Society.
To my friends, Dallas Lore Sharp, Mrs. Sylvester D. Judd, and Miss
Harriet E. Richards, I desire to express my deep appreciation of their
suggestions and criticisms. I am indebted to Mr. James P. Chapin,
Assistant-Curator at the American Museum of Natural History, New York,
for a critical reading of the manuscript.

                                FOREWORD

John Burroughs, in his delightful essay called "Birds and Poets" says:
"The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A
bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense is his
life--large brained, large lunged, hot, ecstatic, his frame charged with
buoyancy and his heart with song. The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with
every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds,--how many
human aspirations are realized in their free, holiday-lives--and how
many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song."[1]
Long before the place of birds in the great scheme of nature was
understood, they made their appeal: first, to primitive man, who had
curious superstitions and created beautiful myths concerning them; next,
to poets and dreamers of ancient civilizations, who used them in
allusions beautiful with Oriental imagery; to artists, who delighted in
portraying symbolism; to later poets and lovers of beauty, who perceived
deep truths and revelations of God; and to scientists, who saw back of
the phenomena of nature the marvelous laws of God.
It is interesting to follow the effect birds have had upon the
development of man. Though the religion of the early Egyptians was
largely worship of the sun and moon, yet reverence for birds entered
into their faith and their ritual. The swallow, the heron, the hawk, the
vulture, the goose, and the ibis were all held sacred. The people of
Egypt with their belief in transmigration, imagined the swallow and the
heron as possible abiding-places for their souls after death.
The Chinese and Japanese have had interesting conceptions regarding
birds that have been both symbolic and poetic. In Japan, wild ducks,
geese, cocks, herons, and cranes have been highly honored. The people
have built torii gates, or entrances to their temples, as "bird-rests"
or perches for their sacred fowl.
The Greek and Roman mythologies abound in allusions to bird-life. It was
natural that the powerful eagle should be held sacred to Jupiter, the
lordly peacock to Juno, the wise owl to Minerva, the repulsive vulture
that haunted battlefields to Mars, the beautiful swan to Apollo, and the