How birds learn to make nests and songs.

  • Miller, W. J. C. (William John Clarke), 1832-1903.
Date:
[1897]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: How birds learn to make nests and songs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    bonnets for one garden party than in all the physiological laboratories of the world.” Now we should be very loth to believe of women what this medical journalist has here set forth. As mother, sister, wife, we love to think of them as the gentlest and kindest of all beings ; and under their influence we look to receive and learn, in such matters as these, the very best instruction. Thus, we prefer to believe that what has been complained of results merely from inattention or inadvertence. The poet who “ sang the song of the shirt ” wisely tells us that “ Evil is wrought by want of thought As well as want of heart.” We believe that it is from the merest want of thought that these dire results occur. The gentlest of all tenders of birds are women ; they are the best of all feeders at trying times ; and it is they that always succeed in winning the birds’ best affections. When the beautiful white-winged doves of the sea were daily congregating by thousands on St. James’s Lake, it was women that were the most assiduous feeders of these birds ; and as one watched the pretty sight, saw some birds catch from women’s hands pieces thrown from the bridge, and others standing on the ice, looking like some of Dore’s groups of angels, it was no un- common thing to remark that among those who were the most assiduous feeders, several had their hats adorned with the plumage of these very birds. It was, one may be sure, the merest inadvertence; and the incongruity did not, probably, ever occur to the wearers themselves. If we can get women to believe that these beautiful creatures who afford us so much delight have faculties somewhat like our own; that they learn song much as we do, build nests as we build houses, and some- times, in these things, seem to surpass many of us ; that they are not to be simply credited with “ blind instinct,” but have faculties that may rightly engage our sympathies; then it is to be hoped that women will refuse to adorn themselves with plumage plucked from gladsome parents whose progeny are, by their loss, left to hapless destruction, and that a feeling for better ways will be begun among women ; and, if well begun, it will, we may feel pretty sure, be carried on to the perfection that all lovers of birds desire by a persistent energy that women are, in all things they take to heart, always proud to display. Richmond-on-Thames. W. J. C. Miller. John Balk, Sons & Danielsson, Ltd., Printers, 85-89, Gt. Titchfield St., W.